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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION 

OF 

JESUS CHRIST 





JESUS CHRIST: 


His 
I. 


Person— His Authority — His Work. 


Jesus Christ before His Ministry. 




#1.2 5 . 


II. 


Jesus Christ during His Minis- 




try. $1.25. 


III. 


The Death and Resurrection of 




Jesus Christ. $1.25. 



THE 



DEATH AND RESURRECTION 



OF 



JESUS CHRIST 



BY 
EDMOND STAPFER . 

PROFESSOR IN THE FACULTY OF PROTESTANT THEOLOGY 
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 



^Translate!* fcj 
LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1898 



£'\ 301 



Copyright, 1898, 
By Charles Scribner's Sons. 



2n 



140, 

?%jfc< OF COHqI 




TWO COPTER KtUtlVED. 

Slntberstta press : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



1396, 



TREFACE 



T^IIIS volume concludes the series of 

essays which I have consecrated to 

the Life of Jesus, or, rather, to the study 

of his person, his authority, and his work. 

My first book, short as it was ("Jesus 
Christ before his Ministry"), covered a 
period of thirty years. The second 
("Jesus Christ during his Ministry ") in- 
cluded only about two years. Barely six 
months now remain for me to describe, or 
lather a single week, the last, for the story 
of the other events requires only a few 
pages; and it would be easy to write large 
volumes, entire libraries, upon the events 
which crowded this last week. 

What do I say ? — easy t< > write ? These 
libraries already exist, and no literature in 
the world equals in volume the bibliog- 
raphy df the 'hist days, and especially of 



Vi PREFACE 

the last twenty -four hours, of the life of 
Jesus. One may say that each of the 
minutes which one by one passed away, 
from the beginning of the evening of 
Thursday, the 13th or 14th Msan, to the 
hour of sunset on the Friday following, 
has counted for more than centuries in the 
history of humanity. 

I said in the introduction to my second 
volume, that of the three periods in the 
ministry of Jesus Christ the first is 
shrouded in obscurity, the second is better 
known, the third is thoroughly well known 
and stands in full light. This is the 
period which I have now to pass in review. 
Everything in it is clear, evident, luminous, 
and critics are in general accord as to the 
facts related in the Gospels. But this can 
be said only in a general way. When we 
come to details we find variations in the 
authentic documents. It suffices to glance 
over a synopsis giving a comparative text 
of the Gospels to be convinced of this. 
They swarm with petty contradictions. 

It is always thus in history. The more 
abundant the documents concerning a 
given epoch, the greater the embarrass- 
ment of criticism, because contradictory 



PREFACE Vll 

statements, all equally worthy of credence, 
abound in like proportion. Those histo- 
rians who in a later day shall narrate the 
war of 1870 will be in possession of an 
incomparable wealth of authorities, and 
will be able to set forth the same facts in 
two or three different ways, basing their 
statements upon documents of indisputable 
authenticity. 

The same is the case with regard to the 
last days in the life of Jesus. When we 
narrated his infancy and youth we were 
face to face with the unknown; we were 
forced upon conjecture. Here it is just 
the other way: we have facts, authorities, 
the narratives of witnesses; but between 
them we must make a choice, and here 
our perplexities begin. To choose is some- 
times more difficult than to conjecture. 
Often we know not what conclusion to 
form; where the Synoptics say Yes, the 
Fourth Gospel says No, and vice versa. 
Did Jesus keep the Jewish Passover with 
his disciples on the evening before his 
death? Yes, say the first three Gospels; 
No, says St. John. Did the Last Supper 
take place on the 13th or the 14th Nisan? 
The 13th, says St. John ; the 14th, affirm 



Vlll PREFACE 

the Synoptics. On what day was Jesus 
crucified? On the 14th Nisan, says St. 
John ; on the 15th, say the Synoptics. At 
what hour? At nine o'clock in the morn- 
ing, according to the first three Gospels ; 
not until afternoon, according to the 
Fourth. These are only trifling details, 
if you please; but we shall show that 
they are not unimportant; and besides, 
there are still other contradictions, while 
as to the examples just chosen the oppo- 
sition is irreconcilable. We cannot accept 
one set of statements without rejecting the 
other. It is only the harmonists who are 
intrepid enough to piece together passages 
reciprocally destructive, and declare that 
their contradictions are unimportant. We 
are more respectful toward the texts, 
believing that no one respects them less 
than those who distort them that they may 
make them agree. 

It is true that for the object which 
I have in mind these differences are of 
minor importance. I have already said 
that I am not relating the life of Jesus, 
but simply seeking to discern his thought. 
I desire to speak of what went on in his 
soul. In this last volume, as hitherto, I 



PREFACE IX 

shall treat of his person, how lie under- 
stood himself; of his authority, what au- 
thority he attributed to himself ; and, finally, 
of his work, which was a work of "obedi- 
ence unto death, even the death of the 
cross/' 1 I shall particularly ask what were 
the special interests of Jesus during these 
last days, and 1 shall show that he was 
occupied in turn by two great thoughts, 
antithetical to one another, — the persua- 
sion that a violent death was approaching 
him very nearly, and the invincible hope 
that it would be spared him. 

I shall put aside, as I have hitherto 
done, those episodes of the Gospel history 
which do not directly affect my subject, 
with the result that here, as in the two 
former volumes, many things will be pur- 
posely left out. These, however, will be 
less numerous than in the other works. I 
can see no motive for not utilizing the data 
here given concerning certain personages, 
like Annas, Caiaphas, Judas; of not giv- 
ing a thorough study to the denial of 
Peter; or of not giving this or that archaB- 
ological detail which may illustrate the 
story. 

1 Phil. ii. 8. 



X PREFACE 

I shall tell what I find in the Gospels ; 
what it is to me impossible not to find 
there. I shall endeavor to set aside all 
that religious education and received tra- 
dition have put a 'priori in the thought of 
all of us, upon these grave subjects. We 
all have, inevitably, our ready-made ideas 
upon these well-known questions, and 
those accepted, time-honored explanations 
of their difficulties, which no one dreams 
of doubting. I shall seek to forget them 
all, and to speak of the last days of Jesus' 
life, of his death, of his resurrection, as 
if my eyes had fallen upon the Gospel 
narratives for the first time, and as if no 
book, whether of edification or of criti- 
cism, had been written upon them, or were 
known by me. The task is difficult; yet 
I must undertake it, and every historian of 
Jesus ought to undertake it: his duty of 
impartiality requires this. My readers will 
judge whether it has been given me to 
succeed, at least to a certain degree. 

In view of my special purpose, the chap- 
ters upon the resurrection of Jesus will 
form, so to speak, an appendix to my 
work, the rather as they do not belong to 
the study proper. The acts and deeds of 



PREFACE XI 

the Risen One have nothing essential to 
teach us about his person^ his authority, or 
his work; and to remain within the limits 
which I marked out for myself, I might, 
and perhaps I should, have paused at the 
death of Jesus upon the cross. But the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ is so impor- 
tant, both in itself and by the influence 
which faith in his resurrection has exerted 
and still exerts, that I feel myself bound 
to speak of it. I shall devote to it five or 
six chapters, which will be in some sort 
supplementary. I shall first study the 
various accounts of the resurrection, shall 
then say what seems to me to be the truth 
about the resurrection, and finally I shall 
show what is to be understood by faith in 
the Risen Christ. 

And now, thanking God that I have 
been able to complete this task, I ask of 
him that it may do good, that it may con- 
tribute to the instruction and edification of 
souls by making them acquainted with a 
Christ who is perhaps more living and 
more real than he whom they have until 
now adored and served. I have written 
these three volumes in all sincerity and in 
all faith. If some pious persons are sur- 



Xll PREFACE 

prised and in a manner disconcerted by 
one or another of my assertions, I am con- 
fident that they will reverse this first 
impression, and I dare hope that they will 
perceive that the Christ of my three vol- 
umes is indeed he who lived, the Christ of 
history, the Saviour of the world, and the 
Saviour of their souls. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Preface v 

Chapter 

I. The Last Winter ! 3 

II. Intrigues against Jesus ... 20 

III. The Last Discourse on the 

Kingdom 37 

IV. The Entry into Jerusalem . . 55 
V. The Last Days 74 

VI. The Last Evening 93 

VII. The Lord's Supper 108 

VIII. The Arrest 121 

IX. The Trial 141 

X. The Execution 165 

XI. The Resurrection Narratives 

(The Gospel Narratives) . . 186 
XII. The Resurrection Narratives 

(St. Paul's Narrative) . . 202 

XIII. The Truth about the Resurrec- 

tion 218 

XIV. The Certainty of the Resurrec- 

tion 233 

XV. Faith in the Resurrection . . 243 

Conclusion 261 



JESUS CHRIST 

HIS PERSON, HIS AUTHORITY, HIS 

WORK 



$art CCInrto 



THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF 
JESUS CHRIST 



CHAPTER I 

THE LAST WINTER 

T ET us take up the story where we 
left . it at the end of our second 
volume; that is, at the moment when 
Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for the Feast 
of Tabernacles, in the early days of Octo- 
ber in the year 29. He will be crucified in 
early April of the next year, at the Feast 
of the Passover; there remain, therefore, 
only six months to describe. 

We have seen Jesus forming the resolu- 
tion to set out for the Holy City ; we have 
set forth his motives for going thither, his 
disappointments, his presentiments, and 
have cited his very distinct utterances as 
to the destiny which was awaiting him. 
It was the growing opposition of the 
Pharisees which urged him on to Jerusa- 
lem. He was resolved to look this oppo- 
sition in the face, and vanquish it or die. 



4 THE DEATH AND 

The earlier hostilities of the Pharisees 
had had the contrary effect, and had 
rather deterred him from visiting the 
capital of Palestine. During a long 
period, perhaps eighteen months, we have 
seen him declining to make the pilgrimage 
thither; 1 he refused to set out with the 
caravan, and this time he even declared 
that he would not go. Then, when every 
one had gone he set out 2 alone, or with 
his most intimate disciples, but not walk- 
ing with them, travelling incognito. , 3 

In this conduct there was an abrupt 
change of plan, easy to understand. Jesus 
had avoided Jerusalem because he knew 
by former experience what a formidable 
battle he would there be called to wage. 
He desired first to win over the northern 
province to his ideas ; but now that Galilee 
itself was closed to him, there was no 
other alternative open to him but conflict, 
and that in the very heart of his nation. 
His ministry of wandering had only been a 
moment of transition, a sort of interrup- 
tion of his work, fruitful, indeed, for in 
it he became definitely non-sectarian ; but 

1 John vii. 1. 2 John vii. 10. 

8 Luke ix. 51 ; Mark x. 32. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 5 

this very catholicity, separating him from 
the religion of his fathers, only made the 
more imperative in his eyes the necessity 
of carrying the conflict to the very centre, 
to Jerusalem, where either victory or defeat 
must be derisive. 

Jesus therefore set out, and we may 
imagine with what thoughts! Would he 
ever again see these lake shores, and all 
this Galilee which he so dearly loved? 
His own country would have none of him; 
and now, what was he to meet? Death, a 
horrible death; everything told him so; 
the necessity of a death by violence was 
showing itself more and more clearly to 
be imperative. The Dolorous Way was 
opening before him; Jesus was truly set- 
ting forth to meet the cross. 

His apostles and a few pious women 
followed him; he walked in advance of 
them absorbed in thought; he preferred it 
so. His own friends, no doubt, remained 
faithful to him, but they were profoundly 
disturbed. 1 They did not understand him, 
nor did they approve of him. 

At other times, however, master and dis- 
ciples would come together, and the little 
1 Mark x. 32. 



6 THE DEATH AND 

spiritual family would be more united than 
ever. At such times they drew all the 
more closely to one another for being in a 
region that was strange to them. National 
attractions come about of themselves when 
people meet far from their mother country ; 
at such a time they are glad to recognize 
one another and live together. 1 

Was Jesus thinking only of his death ? 
By no means. By a paradox, strange, 
perhaps, but frequent, the most lively 
hopes were allied in his mind with the 
darkest apprehensions. He hoped that 
his people would turn again to him, that 
this last attempt would be crowned with 
striking success ; in a word, he hoped that 
the Jews would be converted, would wel- 
come him with acclaim, and that the 
nation being ready, the kingdom would 
appear. But at the same time he felt 
apprehension; he was apprehensive of 
being rejected, vanquished, put to death; 
he foreboded a catastrophe, a sudden and 
possible destruction of all his hopes; and 
he shuddered at the thought. 

His forebodings were only too well justi- 
fied. Jesus entered Judea and went up to 

1 Matt, xxvii. 55 ; Mark xv. 41 ; Luke xxiii. 49, 55. 



RESURRECTION OE JESUS CHRIST 7 

Jerusalem; he did not return; lie was 
barely able to make a few short journeys 
in the outskirts of the city, a few brief 
retreats, to enjoy a few fleeting days of 
retirement and silence. The Galilean 
ministry was forever ended. 

No doubt he exercised a certain ministry 
in the Holy City, but how different from 
that of the lakeside ! No more publicans 
brought to repentance, no more demonized 
men healed, no more sinful women touched, 
no further preparation for the kingdom by 
the conversion of hearts. Instead of these, 
invective and dispute, everything that up 
to this time he had avoided with all possi- 
ble care. 

Obliged henceforth to argue with the 
Pharisees of Jerusalem, he took their tone, 
made use of their arguments, spoke their 
language ; but solely because they forced 
him to it. They questioned him and he 
could not but reply ; but conversations of 
this sort were certainly distasteful to him. 

The usual custom of Jesus was neither 
to discuss nor to argue; in this sense no 
one was less a rabbi than he. In Galilee 
it had sufficed him to make appeal to the 
moral sense, and speak to the conscience. 



8 THE DEATH AND 

But when disputatious persons force one 
to reply, one is inevitably compelled to 
follow them upon their own ground and 
adopt their language. 1 For that matter, 
Jesus was passed master in these arts. 

In Jerusalem, where he arrived without 
making himself known, entering the city 
quietly, 2 Jesus at once perceived himself 
to be as it were hemmed in by a wall. 
What he needed was to break his way 
through it, and he was not long in per- 
ceiving that this he could not succeed in 
doing; that the opposition was stronger 
than he, and that sooner or later it would 
be the victor. 

He at once began to preach, speaking 
with all frankness; but the hatred of the 
Pharisees soon pursued him, harassing 
him unceasingly. 3 He was truly in a 
foreign country, himself a foreigner and 
surrounded by foreigners; and now he 
met what he had not met in Galilee, — 
opposition arising from determined in- 
credulity and obstinate prepossession. 

It is therefore not to be wondered at 
that Jesus was forced to spend the last 

1 Matt. xii. 3-8, xxiii. 16 ff. 2 John vii. 10 f£. 

3 John vii. 20, 25, 30, 32. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 9 

days of his life in treating questions of 
casuistry. The distance is wide indeed 
between the demonstration of the resurrec- 
tion of the dead from the Pentateuch, and 
the Sermon on the Mount, between the 
arguments disproving the Davidic descent 
of the Messiah and the parables of the 
Kingdom of God! But the conditions 
required this. Jesus must needs change 
his method of teaching when with these 
bitter, aggressive, unbelieving hearers, 
the cavillings of the scribes and the soph- 
isms of the doctors forced him to become a 
controversialist. 1 At times he even made 
the first attack. 2 

It is painful to think how, during these 
last months, Jesus thus wore himself out 
by disputing with the rabbis in the Temple 
porticos, and replying to men who were 
determined neither to hear nor to believe 
in him. To every word said in his favor 
these wiseacres would reply: "He is of 
Galilee, and no prophet comes out of 
Galilee." The words were repeated in the 
Sanhedrin itself; for the name of Jesus 
had already been brought up in the San- 

1 Matt. xxi. 23-27, xxii. 23 f. 

2 Matt. xxii. 41 f. 



10 THE DEATH AND 

hedrin, and one of its members, secretly- 
favorable to him, had attempted to defend 
him. 1 

Between the priests and Jesus there was 
absolutely no possible meeting-ground, no 
point of contact even. We have already 
described these arrogant Sadducees ; 2 they 
had all the pride of their caste, and formed 
an opulent clerical body, who concerned 
themselves not in the least with the people. 
Aristocratic and conservative, they were 
of that satisfied class who are disturbed 
and irritated by the slightest suggestion of 
change. In their opinion the Temple 
religion ought to be incapable of change. 
They were as fanatical and as incapable 
of receiving new ideas as the Mussulmans 
of our day; and yet success absolutely 
depended upon overcoming them, upon 
triumphing over their fanaticisms. 

We think that it was during the Feast 
of Tabernacles (October, A. d. 29) and 
that of the Dedication (December, A. d. 
29) that Jesus was forced into three very 
intricate rabbinical discussions, of which 
the Gospels speak, and obliged to reply to 

1 John vii. 50 f. 

2 See " Jesus Christ Before his Ministry," pp. 96 ff . 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 11 

the perfidious questions of the Pharisees 
and Sadducees. 1 

One of the first questions put to him was 

thai of the tribute. It was a hotly dis- 
cussed question in those days, and served in 
some sort as a touchstone for the intensity 
of a man's patriotism. "Let us see," said 
the Pharisees, " whether he is for or against 
the tribute;'' certain, whatever might be 
his reply, to find in it some excuse for 
turning it against him ; for it was essential 
that he should be compromised, and led on 
to some imprudent utterance. Nothing 
seemed easier than to do this with the 
question of the tribute; and who could 
tell? perhaps it would provide a way to 

1 It is much more natural to place these discussions 
at this period than to accumulate them all in the first 
days of the last week (between Palm Sunday and Holy 
Thursday), as the Synoptics, who mention only one jour- 
ney to Jerusalem, are obliged to do. How much more 
natural and accurate are the data of the Fourth Gospel 
on this point ! Tradition has gathered up into the last 
days much that ought to be scattered, perhaps, through 
all the various visits of Jesus to the Holy City, and in 
any case should be spread over the long months of the 
last winter. Tradition has done what they always do 
who look from a distance, — foreshortened that which is 
far off. The eye-witness who stands behind the writer 
of the Fourth Gospel is free from tradition ; he sees from 
close by, and he sees true. 



12 THE DEATH AND 

make him out a second Judas the Gaul- 
onite. Pharisees and Herodians therefore 
came together and concocted a little plot, 
the purpose of which was to submit to 
him this famous problem; they had most 
adroitly ordered its very terms. Under 
an appearance of frankness and simplicity, 
the question concealed a trap. 

We know the admirable reply of Jesus. 

This question of paying tribute, yes or 
no, was certainly one of those which he 
had decided before entering upon his 
ministry, and the phrase which he uttered 
on the day when he caused a Roman denier 
to be brought to him had no doubt been 
formulated by him long before, in a motto 
which he never gave up; for it is inad- 
missible that Jesus had never considered 
this question until the moment when it 
was put to him. 1 

By this utterance, marvellous in depth 
and justice, he separated the political from 
the religious power, and showed wherein 
was the true spirituality, the true liber- 
ality. 

Let us study this reply of Jesus more 
closely. He formally counsels obedience 

1 Matt. xvii. 24 f . 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 13 

to Caesar. Perhaps he perceived the im- 
possibility of an efficacious, forcible resist- 
ance to Rome ; although he seems never to 
have fully recognized its power. But God 
had permitted Rome to be master; then 
it should be obeyed, at least temporarily. 
The Pharisees themselves were of this 
opinion, 1 and so, it need not be said, were 
the Sadducees. Render to Caesar the 
things that are Caesar's. Who could take 
exception to that? Nothing in the past 
history of the Jews opposed it; neither 
the Law nor tradition commanded revolu- 
tion. So long as the Jew obeyed the law, 
retained his moral independence, and kept 
his conscience intact, he might recognize 
the will of God in a temporary foreign 
domination, and accept it, in consequence ; 
it was possible even to maintain that he 
ought to do so. Therefore Jesus could 
remain entirely true to the most lively 
national hopes, while saying, "Pay to 
Caesar the tribute which he demands," and 
give no ground for the criticism of even 
those most zealous for the Law. 

This is not all; without doubt Jesus 

1 Except the party, at that time small, of the intran- 
sigent and the extreme. 



14 THE DEATH AND 

might have paused here, and said no more 
than " Render unto Caesar the things that 
are Caesar's." The reply to the question 
which had been put to him was complete ; 
but he took advantage of the opportunity 
to add, "Render to God the things that 
are God's." The aphorism is perfect in 
this clear and precise form, and it pene- 
trated like an arrow to the soul of the 
hearer. " To Caesar that which is Caesar's, 
to God that which is God's." By the 
second part of his reply Jesus forestalled 
all objection; he showed that he did not 
forget the God of his people and his in- 
alienable rights. 

Such as it is, this utterance of Jesus was 
not only in advance of his age, it is in 
advance of all the ages that have followed; 
it is even in advance of our own time. 
Neither antiquity nor the Middle Ages 
understood it, and still to-day it is most 
wrongly applied. It remains, like all the 
other sayings of Jesus, a prophecy; an 
immortal motto which will never be over- 
passed, and which will be truly practised 
only in the future. 

The Pharisees confessing themselves 
beaten, the Sadducees in their turn under- 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 15 

took to ensnare Jesus. They worked up 
the sufficiently ridiculous story of the 
seven brothers successively married by the 
same woman. Here we have a highly 
authentic sample of the objections the 
Sadducees used to make to the doctrine 
of the resurrection of the dead, one of the 
favorite dogmas of the Pharisaic school, 
and which Jesus admitted. " Why should 
it be thought incredible that God should 
raise the dead?" was St. Paul's 1 ques- 
tion, and it must certainly have been a 
favorite maxim of Saul of Tarsus. In 
fact, the Pharisees made strenuous efforts 
to demonstrate that belief in the resurrec- 
tion of the body deposited in the ground 
was pefectly admissible. "Are not all 
things possible with God?" they would 
say ; " there is then nothing surprising nor 
strange in his raising the dead; " and there 
were many people to whom such a reflec- 
tion was entirely conclusive. The resur- 
rection of one dead was among things 
possible. There were even some persons 
who affirmed that such events had already 
taken place. At the present day, for a 
man of modern times, a real resurrection, 

1 Acts xx vi. 8. 



16 THE DEATH AND 

the return to organic life of a body really- 
dead, is the impossibility of impossibili- 
ties. 1 But at that time not one of the 
peremptory reasons existed which we have 
for entirely refusing to admit the possi- 
bility of a resurrection which should occur 
in our day. "The dead," they would 
say, "can rise again;" and in any case 
they will rise again "at the last day; " that 
is to say, at the advent of the Messiah. 

Here the Sadducees represented the 
old Hebraic good sense and strongly ridi- 
culed the belief of the Pharisees. This 
was legitimate warfare, and it is certain 
that that one of the stories invented by 
them which is known to us was fairly well 
conceived. It shows how unreasonable is 
the belief in a return to life of organs 
which have no longer any reason for being. 
Jesus, who for a long time had been 
pondering this question, and who had 
cleared up his ideas upon it, replied that 
"All the dead live to God." 2 In the age 
to come, in the restoration of all things, 
the Resurrection, there would be no more 

1 See our reflections on this subject, " Jesus Christ 
Before his Ministry/' p. 27. 

2 Luke xx. 38. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 17 

We should be like the angels, 
"for all live to him;" that is, the death 
of the body cannot interrupt relations with 
God. Here he is neither with the Phari- 
sees nor with the Sadducees. He denies 
the resurrection of the very flesh which 
has been alive, and he affirms the future 
life, in a saying as sane as it is precise: 
" Whoever in this life lives in God and for 
God is eternal ; " he is passed, at the 
present time, from death into life. 1 No 
doubt Jesus might have said, in the same 
sense, " From this time, by faith, he enters 
the kingdom, though the kingdom is not 
yet come." 

Another time, in the course of this 
winter, either at the Feast of Taberna- 
cles or at that of the Dedication, perhaps 
the same day as the Gospels would have 
it, a scribe asked Jesus which is the 
greatest commandment of the law. Jesus 
replied by suppressing all in the Law 
which lies outside of love to God and to 
one's neighbor, and he made these two 
identical. 

This time he received some satisfaction ; 
a few persons approved of him; a scribe 

1 John v. 24 and passim. 
2 



18 THE DEATH AND 

even found this summary of the Law 
"admirable." But this was certainly not 
the case with the Sadducees, and for them 
the saying of Jesus which summed up the 
Law in two commandments was an abomi- 
nable heresy; for, in fact, there was the 
Temple with its sacrifices, and one might 
not declare that it was nothing as com- 
pared with the love of God and of one's 
neighbor. Therefore they set in motion 
the report that Jesus would pull down the 
Temple ; that he was talking of its speedy 
disappearance, and affirming that he would 
replace it; and these more or less authentic 
reports which were in circulation rendered 
him an object of much suspicion. 

Jesus knew this, and was only the more 
bold to speak. One day he in his turn 
asked a question : himself making the first 
attack, 1 showing how in a Psalm David, 
by inspiration (and consequently with 
absolute truth), declared that the Messiah 
was his Lord and master. Therefore, 
said Jesus, the Messiah is not a "Son of 
David," as the scribes assert. 2 

1 Mark xii. 35 f£. 

2 The Psalm (Ps. ex.) is not by David ; but in that 
day all the Psalms, or nearly all, were held to be 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 19 

Here again he was the victor; a fact 
which exasperated his antagonists, who 
from this day were silent. 1 

Davidic. It has been insisted that Jesus did not here 
deny his Davidic descent ; that his purpose was to bring 
the scribes to see that the Messiah must be more than a 
Son of David. Never was exegesis more fantastic and 
more predetermined. It is true that elsewhere Jesus 
permitted himself to be called Son of David, accepting 
a name which here he clearly seems to reject. Most 
probably he was personally entirely indifferent to the 
question of his descent, and simply wished to show the 
scribes, without either affirming or denying his own 
parentage, how easy it was to embarrass them by simply 
imitating their casuistry. 
1 Matt. xxii. 46. 



20 THE DEATH AND 



CHAPTER II 

INTRIGUES AGAINST JESUS 

T F the enemies of Jesus ceased to attack 
him openly, none the less did they 
plot against him in secret. We have just 
referred to one of his sayings which they 
laid up against him : " Destroy this Temple, 
and in three days I will rear it up again." 
That is, "What though the Temple itself 
disappear, I myself will shortly build a 
new edifice, an invisible sanctuary, in 
which little by little all humanity shall 
find a place." He had spoken thus long 
before, on the day when he cleansed the 
Temple, but his words had not been for- 
gotten. 1 This saying, treasured up, re- 
peated, deliberately misunderstood, was 
to be the pretext for his condemnation. 

1 Mark xiv. 58, xv. 29. Cf. John ii. 19. It is 
Mark who gives the most authentic text, the very words 
uttered by Jesus. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 21 

For that matter, every act of Jesus 
was used against him. His uprightness, 
his good sense, his penetrating simplicity 
failed to disarm his adversaries, but rather 
irritated them the more. The less they 
found themselves able to answer him the 
more exasperated against him they became. 
It is when one has exhausted arguments 
that he uses violence. When Jesus closed 
the mouths of his opponents, they took up 
stones to stone him 1 by way of obeying 
the law, 2 and it is needless to say that for 
a long time they had heaped offensive 
epithets upon him: madman, demoniac, 
Samaritan. 3 

An unknown writer has preserved for 
us the memory of one of his discussions. 4 
One day they brought before Jesus a 
woman taken in the very act of adultery. 
His reply to their question is of admirable 
beauty: "Let him that is without sin 
among you cast the first stone." Never 
had his irony been more keen, never did 

1 John viii. 59, x. 31, xi. 8. 

2 Deut. xiii. 3 ff . ; Luke xx. 6 ; John x. 33 ; 2 Cor. 
xi. 25. 

3 John x. 20. 

4 John viii. 3 ff. ; a passage which was not originally 
a part of the Fourth Gospel. 



22 THE DEATH AND 

he more directly reach the consciences and 
close the lips of his adversaries. This 
incident added to all the others simply 
embittered the hatred with which he 
inspired them. 

At other times he would show the 
absurdity of those official personages who 
built tombs for themselves, colossal and 
paltry edifices which served only to dis- 
play their hypocrisy and vanity. 

The fine allegory of the shepherd and 
the sheep 1 was also related in Jerusalem 
this winter at one of the feasts. He de- 
clared, " The sheep hear my voice and fol- 
low me," and spoke in no indirect terms 
of the mercenaries who love not the sheep. 

Finally, his vehement polemical dis- 
courses against the Pharisees were cer- 
tainly another of the determining causes 
of his death. The immortal apostrophes, 
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites! " etc., counted for much in the 
desire to be rid of Jesus, which took pos- 
session of the Pharisees and the chief 
priests. Who knows ; but for these attacks 
he might perhaps have passed unregarded. 
The Sadducees were not aggressive ; they 
i John x. 1 ff. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 23 

loved their repose above all things, and 
though they became the true authors of 
Jesus' death, it was certainly not by 
reason of any new zeal for religion and for 
the law, but because they were determined 
to have no disturbance, no commotion. 

Those whom Jesus most disquieted were 
the Sophcrim among the Pharisees; it is 
true that they also were most displeasing 
to him. He spoke to them with an elo- 
quence of holy indignation which recalls 
the preaching of John the Baptist; he 
branded their hypocrisy; he continually 
insisted that the Gentiles would be sub- 
stituted for the Jews, and the kingdom 
transferred to them. 1 At the same time 
he boldly declared himself to be the Son 
of God, 2 and openly named the Pharisees 
as the murderers of the heaven-sent 
messengers. 

In denunciations of sublime eloquence 
he fulminated against all wicked priests 
and false devotees, exposed the spiteful 
and BUgared bigotry of hypocritical Phari- 
sees. Ah, how slight a thing must now 

1 Matt. xx. 1 ff., xxi. 28 ff., 33 ff., xxii. 1 ff.; 
Mark xii. 1 ff. ; Luke xx. 9 ff. 

2 Matt. xxi. 37 f. ; John x. 36. 



24 THE DEATH AND 

have appeared to him the opposition of the 
Galilean Pharisees! 

These last days of his life must have 
been deeply saddened by sight of this 
most narrow formalism. His ardent in- 
vectives are penetrated through and 
through with the grief that filled his heart 
as he saw his plans failing, his people 
rejecting him, an ever-growing hatred 
springing up around him, his work miscar- 
ried, his death by violence becoming every 
day more inevitable. Oh, these Pharisees, 
of whom he had hoped so much ! who had 
been so congenial to him! whom he had 
for so long a time believed to be the true 
heirs of the past! He was exasperated, 
not with the men, but with their spirit, 
their tendencies, with what future ages 
were to call Pharisaism! This sort of 
Pharisaism still exists; it is in the heart 
of man; it knows no national barrier. 

He had gone too far; they resolved 
upon his death. This measure had already 
been spoken of, 1 but vaguely, and it is 
hard to say when it was for the first time 
seriously considered; no doubt it was at 
first merely a suggestion, which, growing 

1 John v. 18, vii. 1, 20, 25, 30, viii. 37, 40. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 25 

little by little, was transformed into a pre- 
diction and finally took on a reality 
which it had not at first. The Jews had 
authority to rid themselves of Jesus by 
stoning. The Romans were about to take 
away this liberty, but they still had it; 
and having it, they noted the slightest 
words of the Nazarene, in order to make 
of them a trap into which they might 
push him. 

It was probably about February or March 
that the death of Jesus was definitively 
resolved upon, at least in principle. 1 The 
chief priests came together ; 2 the question 
before them was Jesus or Judaism. The 
high priest Caiaphas saw true when he put 
it in this absolute form; he clearly per- 
ceived all the danger of new doctrines. 

This Caiaphas had little more than 
nominal power; but at his side like an 
evil genius was his father-in-law Annas, 
a former high priest, and head of a very 
powerful family. Annas was the true 
incarnation of Sadduceeism. He had all 
its prejudices and all its arrogance, and 
to these he added consummate experience 
and thorough acquaintance with all the 

1 John xi. 53. 2 John xi. 47. 



26 THE DEATH AND 

traditions of his order. It was always to 
him that ever} 7 question was referred. His 
authority was so great that the usual 
expression was Annas and Caiaphas, 1 he 
being named first, before the actual high 
priest. 

It is not to be doubted that this crafty 
priest was the true author of Jesus' death, 
and certainly more culpable than Caiaphas 
or Pilate. Like all the Sadducees he 
was a conservative ; that is, a man of the 
existing order, of narrow and petty spirit. 
" Quieta non mover x " might have been the 
motto of his life as well as that of his 
party. To avoid all agitation, of what- 
ever nature, was the guiding principle of 
Annas and his coterie. For that matter, 
is it not the guiding principle of all con- 
servative parties? 

Moreover, Annas was a proud, haughty, 
cruel man, and crafty in his cruelty. Our 
Temple, our homes, our wealth, our power, 
these were the unvarying watchwords of 
the Sadducees, and first of all of their high 
priest. 

It had come to the point of getting rid 
of Jesus, and the saying of Caiaphas, " It is 
1 Luke iii. 2. See Acts iv. 6. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 27 

expedient that one man should die for the 
people," 1 would have been more sincere 
under the form, " Let this man perish rather 
than the Temple, and even the rich priests 
who owe everything to it." In speaking 
as he did, the high priest made no mis- 
take. It was necessary that Jesus should 
die ; but the Christ would rise again and 
"would die no more;" 2 and when that 
time came Judaism would perish. 

Certainly it was not the new-born 
Christianity that destroyed Judaism in the 
year 70 ; but if Judaism had not then dis- 
appeared, the victim of its own faults, 
Christianity would surely sooner or later 
have brought about the ruin of the Israel- 
itish nation. 3 

And yet Jesus had not entirely failed at 
Jerusalem. He had had partial successes 
with individuals ; 4 he bad made a few dis- 
ciples. At one time he even aroused much 
sympathy. "The world is gone after 
him," it was said. 5 At the last he had 
become widely known; the people held 

1 John xi. 50. 2 Rom. vi. 9. 

3 See " Palestine in the Time of Jesus Christ," 
preface. 

* Mark xii. 37. 6 John xii. 19. 



28 THE DEATH AND 

him to be a good patriot, so much so that 
the Sanhedrin feared a popular uprising if 
they should arrest him openly. 

However, take it all in all, the number 
of Judeans who truly believed in him must 
have been sufficiently small ; they remained 
unknown and more or less hidden; when 
the decisive hour came they had not the 
courage of their convictions. For a long 
time Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea 
dared not avow themselves won over; 
among the others more than one deliber- 
ately kept in the background. 

It is true that Jerusalem had very 
deeply rooted prejudices. Follow a Gali- 
lean ! Take him for a prophet ! For the 
Messiah, perhaps! What a discredit! 
what a heresy, even! What a cause for 
excommunication ! The risk of being cast 
out of the synagogue and having one's 
property confiscated was enough to make 
more than one draw back. 1 

Such was the state of things in Jerusa- 
lem during the autumn of the year 20, and 
the following winter up to the middle of 
March in the year 30. It was especially, 

1 Esdras x. 8 ; Heb. x. 34 ; Jerusalem, Moed Katon, 
iii. 1. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 29 

as has been said, at the two great feasts, 
Tabernacles (October, A. d. 29) and the 
Dedication (December, A. D. 29) that Jesus 
made his presence felt. Perhaps he visited 
the Holy City between these two festivals 
and after that of the Dedication; we do 
not know; but it appears certain that his 
sojourn in Jerusalem was always very short. 

What was he doing in the intervals of 
his visits to the capital? He did not 
return to Galilee, but retired a short dis- 
tance from the city to some quiet and safe 
retreat where he was personally unknown, 
and where he had no reason to fear arrest. 

His conduct in these last weeks of his 
life shows at once great courage and great 
prudence. His courage is shown in the 
openness of his attacks, and his prudence 
in the care with which during the greater 
part of the time he sought shelter from 
the ambushes of his enemies. Always on 
the alert, he had a peculiar way of dis- 
appearing in the midst of a crowd, and 
slipping away unobserved. 1 After the 
Feast of the Dedication he went still 
farther away, to Perea, on the eastern side 
of the Jordan. 

1 Luke iv. 30 ; John viii. 59 ; x. 39, etc. 



30 THE DEATH ASD 

But his usual retreat was Kj.hraim: lie 
generally went thither after his aj«j 
ances in Jerusalem. Ephraim was a small 
village at a short distance northward from 

the Holy City. 1 

Iii Ephraim Jesus w ly unknown ; 

he oould remain then hidden, with 
Twelve. 1 Be oonld easily ^> th< 
Jerusalem in a few hours; while then 

near the desert, whir], 1 would 

offer him a retreat. 1 1 . ging his 

.soji.urn in Ephraim he might hop 
become forgotten, at la lily, 

Bui the order for ; 

given, and his enemies, ki. bow 

much Jesus valued the l ■ i > ;lg8 . 

over, had no bar that he would aol return 

t<> the Holy ( ; th<- annual 

festival with his friend 

1 Authorities an 

Ephraim. Bo* Mn ■ ; 

s:\li in, JarOOM twenty mile*. Euim 

in that com it iim>t lir tii«> town m< Bethel 

ami .Irni>;\l«Mi in '2 ( *hr<»n. xiii. 1'.'. Josephoi »1»0 men- 

tiooi a citv Bphialm (/'. B in <<»nnpction 

with Bethel ll. ipeaki "f Vmpagtan taJ ••irns 

of Bethel ami Bpbraim 

territory of tho trit i dm. 

3 John x • J. 56. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 31 

This indeed was what came to pass. 
Jesus returned to Jerusalem, and notwith- 
standing the gravest indications of danger, 
was kept there by his desire to keep the 
Passover, joined with the almost certitude 
of not being disturbed during the Feast; 
and it was at this time that he was 
arrested. Perhaps he might even yet 
have escaped, so carefully had he taken 
all precautionary measures, had not one of 
the Twelve infamously made known his 
place of retreat and caused his arrest on 
the very night of the Feast. After that, 
all was over in a few hours. The Sad- 
ducees made away with him, having by 
base flattery and a most artful lie secured 
his condemnation by the Roman authority. 

But let us not anticipate ; for the time 
Jesus was still hoping, in spite of a thou- 
sand ever-growing reasons for hoping no 
longer. 

Among his favorite retreats was one in 
the outskirts of the city, Bethany, where 
he had some valued friends : l Martha, 
Mary, Lazarus, Simon the leper, formed a 
faithful company. Jesus loved to refresh 
himself in their society. The contrast 

1 John xi. 1 ff . ; Matt. xxvi. 6 ; Mark xiv. 3. 



32 TEE DEATH AND 

between Bethany and Jerusalem, though 

so near one anothi 

Bethany ,]^>n> Celt himself Car n 

from the cavillings of the scribes, their 

intrioate qu . their malioe and : 

fidy. Bethany m some degree made up 

to him for hie belo I ( - Lilee, the lake 

shore, the solitary mountain retn 

Tli is village b 

place, hie beet-beloved hon 

These p hgej 

it is probable, ho Ken 

ohanged hie abode, and for meatus 
prndenoe i og in 

pla< 

Once, in hie oomings and . he 

Btopped in Jericho* < of pilgi 

l often bo pass through it. I 
was snrroanded with palme and Lamina 

nd bain 1 relati< 

w ith many cities on the Eai thei 
the Jordan, a <■■ ber <»f pub- 

licans were stationed there. The dire* 
of these on 

elieus, perceived the breadth of Jesus' 
ideas and declared himself for him, and 
Jesus Lodged in ln's house. The ajK^tles, 

Long since accustomed to see their DOSSl 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 33 

thus act, took no offence ; but to many, to 
all the strangers in the city, this step on 
Jesus' part became a stumbling-block. 

At the time of this visit to Jericho 
Jesus was again on his way to Jerusalem. 
It was one of his critical journeys to the 
Holy City, perhaps the last, and on that 
day a great crowd was following him, 
especially of Galileans. The rumor had 
gone abroad that the kingdom was about 
to appear; that it was precisely in order 
to be present at its coming that Jesus 
was on his way to the place where it would 
first be manifested. " The slow and quiet 
time of preparation is past," men said; 
"the kingdom is not simply at hand, it 
is imminent; it will almost immediately 
appear." There was therefore an extraor- 
dinary excitement in all this crowd of 
provincial pilgrims, among this Galilean 
folk, who professed a great admiration for 
Jesus, an unlimited confidence in him. 1 
They were ready for anything; they ex- 
pected everything. Did they all see in 
Jesus the Messiah ? We do not think so. 
For the majority of them he was only the 
Prophet, the Forerunner, the Herald, 

1 Luke xix. 11. 
3 



34 THE DEATH AND 

"He who cometh in the name of the 
Lord," as they thi 

some called him Elias, ami i ; i a h 

or one of the prophets;- for the Messiah 

was not to appear until the advent 
kingdom. The Twelv< 

thitt Jef ! the .V . and that 

when the kingdom a] - old 

appear in hi> gloiy, quit! 

oharaotei od Sea rant od the l.< rcL 

one, tht Bomething 

striki 

Ami JetUS hi 

ideas about the kingdom at this i 

moment when he wa.s u r "in.i, r nj> to . 

It- 1 11, all dying > ; Wt 

hive ah own that he had the gravest 

•.'. ard to I :uie 

death as inevitable; bat at tfa 

lie had a hope that the will of God in' 

he otherwise ace. mi J »1 i>ln d, that a change 

might take place in the mil 

people and oi the Sanhedrim In that case 
he would resunie and finish 1 lean 

work, preparing for t! 
pentanoe and i change in the hi 

men; and this in Jerusalem Km If, in the 
1 Matt. x\i. 14. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 35 

Temple, welcomed by all. What a vision 
was this! 

Then the kingdom would appear, and 
he, the Son of man, would come in his 
glory. 

Alas! events were to turn out quite 
otherwise, and the Father's will was to be 
revealed to him as quite ofcher than that 
which he still hoped. He went up to 
Jerusalem, asking himself whether his 
people would receive him with acclama- 
tion or whether he must die. And he 
already foresaw that the second alternative 
was inevitable. 

And yet ho would make one last effort ; 
he would try a triumphal entry, making 
the most of the fact that the Galileans in 
his train were numerous and faithful. He 
would enter Jerusalem at their head, 
escorted and acclaimed by them, on a day 
carefully chosen in advance. Oh, if 
Jerusalem should understand in this its 
day the things that belong to its peace ! ] 
No doubt he felt the growing ill-will of 
the leaders of his people, he had seen their 
faces dark with hatred ; they had rejected 
him, they hated him; yet still God was 

1 Luke xix. 42. 



36 TMM DEATB AND 

powerful and he Wfl '1 80 

he would still hope; U 
him not to hope. 

Can we m ly Eathom the thou 

of Jesus in tin- when he was plan- 

Ding his triumphal entry; and more par- 
ticularly can we ci. thought as 
to the advei It is easy 
to answer this question, than] 

coarse on the ooming of the kingdom | 

served to as by the three Synoptics, 1 tin- 
study Of whii h, « ith that of the j.al.c 

uttered ly Jesus in the i 

Life, will be the subject of our i 
obapter. 

* M autl xxv.; Mark xiii ; Luke xxi. i if. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 37 



CHAPTER III 

THE LAST DISCOURSE ON THE KINGDOM 

TN these closing days of his life Jesus 
would sometimes seat himself over 
against the Temple. The spectacle that 
lay unrolled before his eyes was a magnifi- 
cent one : the terraced height upon which 
stood the sacred edifice, the shining roof 
of the sanctuary, the superb perspective 
of its courts, its walls and gates, evoked 
cries of admiration from all who looked 
upon it. But Jesus gazed upon these 
splendors with an unconquerable sadness. 
All this was to be destroyed; and Jeru- 
salem, the city of his people, the citadel 
of King David, would cast him out, and 
put him to death. "O Jerusalem! " he 
cried, "thou which killest the prophets 
and stonest them that are sent unto thee! 
how often would I have gathered thy chil- 
dren together even as a hen gathereth her 



38 HE // AND 

cliickens under her wings, and ye would 
not!' 1 

One day above all irly 

solemn: Jesus spoke out his full la-art t<> 
his disciples. Tli. looking upon 

the buildings of the Temple, which seemed 
to them marvellous. [{ was then thai 

JeSU to tin-in in full ll( ling 

thrill oj 

calamities ; and yet in I of an- 

nouncing tli -> uf tlir 1 1 I 

prophesied the cob the kingdom. 

This was his final thou 
\\Y have shown that <>n many sul 

thr idr; 

uallv, i oo nan 

pressure od and tl 

daily 63 I «>n thifl point 

thought had not changed in the least 

There is one notion which he kept i 

identical with itself thn 

ministry, the notion of the kingdom of 

God. What it had been In the <\.i) 

the Galilean m . when on mount 

or lake aide he proclaimed h 

it still was shortly befo ben, 

sitting in ?iew of the Tern] 

xiii. 34. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 39 

to his apostles the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem and the final catastrophe. Everything 
leads us to believe that we have here his 
first thought, that which he formed in 
Nazareth in the days of his youth, when 
he was studying the prophecies of Daniel 
and Enoch, and believing that the Jews 
would gladly welcome in him the Messiah. 

He did not admit a nearer proximity 
of the kingdom now than formerly. The 
usual preparation which he had undertaken 
was still needed, — a longer or shorter 
work of reformation in the hearts of men, 
which he still did not despair of accom- 
plishing; but if his people themselves 
refused to be converted they were hist, 
they would perish at the coming of the 
great day. This great day was near at 
hand, but not imminent; it was the day of 
his own return, the return of the Son of 
man. 

His entire way of looking upon this 
grave subject is Bammed up in a few 
words, in an utterance of his not recorded 
in the Gospels, but cited textually by St. 
Paul in one of his Epistles, written long 
before the Gospels. 1 

1 1 Thess. iv. 15 ff. 



40 Till. DEATH AND 

In A.i). 52 of 58, I'aul, writing to the 
Thessalonian . qu«»tcd t<» them 
of the Lewd." It it We • 

arc alive ami remain unto the coming 
the Lord shall not preoede them which 
are aali the Lord himself shall 

descend from heaven at a gj 

\<>icc of the archangel and the tramp of 
God ; and the <l'.n\ b I it shall 

which are ali\r. the !■ 
nant, shall Ik- caught up at the s.r 

with them in the clouds, to meet tl i I 
in the air, and ball be 

with the Lnnl." ' I i '.ml 

Lb fullv confirmed by the sayings <»f .Jesus 
himself, as the I bave piest i 

them. Jeaoi Bof angels sounding 

the bmn ad of hie own descent as 

Son of in, in. in the cl< 

heaven. All the | 

his mi:, 
tended 

1 }■ Dl thai St Paul alight! I the 

pxprossi-'i, f,. r tho I that 

placing i' Ml rr.id • 

" V. . having \**n referred to wo 

my appearing," f tho S>n <>f man," 

rtr. For that : l'nul sj>< .i 7 to a sajr- 

inp of Jesu*. and doe* not cite it w<<r<l f.>r w 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 41 

cisely his thought, in these days of intense 
thought on the subject of the last things, 
and that his views never varied. 

Intense thought, we say, for in the 
latter part of his life Jesus was certainly 
much absorbed in these high and grave 
questions: the end of the world, his re- 
turn, the coming of the kingdom, pre- 
ceded by a catastrophe which would 
overwhelm his people. That these were 
unceasingly in his thoughts is proved by 
the parables of this period, every one of 
which treats of this same subject (the Ten 
Virgins, the Talents, the Marriage Supper, 
the Vinedressers, the Last Judgment, 
etc.). And as Jesus liked to utter the 
last perfected form of his thought in the 
form of parables, as it was in parables 
that he finally left it, we must seek for 
his final thought in the figures that he 
uses. 

This is what we find in them: the 
kingdom is always to come ; in the parable 
of the Ten Virgins 1 it is represented by 
the festal hall which men will enter 
whenever the bridegroom shall appear. 
The same is the case in the parable of the 
1 Matt. xxv. 1 ff. 



42 Till. DEATH AND 

Mina ok the Talents; 1 the kingdom u-ill 
be given, will hi inaugurated; it is tb 
tore iin: me. In the words to the 

Phariseee of Jerusalem, irhioh date bom 
this epoch, Jesus laji the i 
publicans and harlots will ■ /on yon 

into the kingdom of heaven." 1 Ye shut 
iij» the kingdom of heaven 
hinder othen from making ready toenl 
"ami you shall not entef therein.* 1 

When l i l ' i 1 1 with hii 

cijilrs, on the night U fore hi 
said that one daj ho would drink the oew 
wine in the kingdom. 1 Jesus' I 
about the kingdom ia therefore precisely 
the same as hia 

.ritual 01 D by him 

in the present life, and workii out 

invisibly in tb ousneai «'f I 

oiples. I only kingdon 

heaven, that winch shall \*- set up i 
the Bon of man appeaii afl the end <»f the 
present age 6 or in tl 
As to the great est ; <urse, 

I Matt. xw. 14 ft ■ Malt, xxi IL 

* M.itt xxiii. 1.1. 

I Iaikowii 16-18 j Mar- Matt xxvi. 29. 

.41. • M 2S. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 43 

so embarrassing to certain prejudging 
critics that they prefer either to deny its 
authenticity or to give it an allegorical 
explanation, though without having the 
shadow of a reason for such an allegoriza- 
tion, it is admirably comprehensible from 
the historic point of view. 1 Jesus was re- 
peating what was said in the apocalypses 
of his own days, and as he never said that 
he was allegorizing, or that his words must 
be taken spiritually, no one has any right 
to do so. Moreover, 4 these ideas had for a 
long time been the property both of him- 
self and of the whole people. 

1 The authenticity of this discourse has heen con- 
tested, is contested still in all the various camps of criti- 
cism, the most conservative gj W ell as the most radical. 
Tt is certain that parta "f it have heen worked over. A 
simple comparison of the three texts shows that Luke's 
account was worked over }»>st eventum ; hut its authen 
ticity as a whole appears to me beyond dispute. Who, 
indeed, could have invented Mark's account? Such 
assertions have been disproved by facts ! Modern exe- 
getcs tell us that Jesus could not have said this or that, 
always deciding what he must have said ! We believe 
that it is more respectful toward his thought not to per- 
mit ourselves to pass judgment on his words, hut to set 
them forth impartially, just as they have been trans- 
mitted to us by disinterested hearers, who more often 
than not did not understand him. As to allegorizing 
all these words, we leave this to those who find symbols 
where Jesus never said that he put any. 



44 THE DEATH a 

It is true that never hit 1 «1 he 

spoken bo clearly. If lie did so now at 
last, it anae liis violent death was 

imminent, and became the kingdom would 
come only after lii^ death. This 1 • 
it vi Baaiy t: >uld 

know and remember it, that vrhen lie was 
no Longer with them, their faith in the 
coming of his kingdom sic I I in the 
All that the propheta had 
s.iid Bhoold 1h" accomplished. I I- 
himself, M I il all refcu i ' I J] rettu 
This certainly d him; and lieforo 

hen he mdemning him 

t<» death, hi . *' From henceforth 

yon shall Bee the Son of mai 
the i ighl hand and < oming in 

the clouds of b thai 

i u 

'I'h« r. n the 

the 
that tht POfdl that follow are allcpi r 

oordii 

neat and fpiritnal return. N ilag, 

author 

•tat i- >ti "f ' 
this tiinr "DN, 

.11 r.'turn ■ j«e«r- 

■net of .U'sua befort . on the occasion of 

his trial. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 45 

men should daily look forward to the 
coming of the kingdom. 

The following are indeed the apocalyptic 
ideas of Jesus, in their final and complete 
form : — 

The present order is to come to an end 
by a tremendous revolution, a "tribula- 
tion " which shall be a time of travail, fol- 
lowed by a birth or a new birth, a 
"palingenesis." 1 This new birth was to 
be accompanied by phenomena which 
would be only the result of these child- 
birth pangs.' J 

It is beyond question that certain feat- 
ures of tli is discourse arc due to the narra- 
tives themselves, since the dates at which 
the several accounts were committed to 
writing are indicated by the varying 
degrees of precision with which the siege 
of Jerusalem is described. But Jesus 
must have predicted very terrible events. 
The passages in which he does so cannot 
be unauthentic; they are too closely in 
accordance with the ideas of his times. 
That terrible events would precede the 
Messiah's advent was universally foretold 

1 Matt. xix. 28. 

2 Matt. xxiv. 3 ff. ; Mark xiii. 4 ff. ; Luke xvii. 22 ff. 



46 THE hi M u AND 

and cvci vw here b Keyed. : 

moment, M the sign of the . s <»n ol man " 

would appeal in the hi raid 

U- the great day. The 

of a Luminous vision, a Lightning Sash, ;i 

flame ol fire darting aorosa the si Then 

the Messiah, th ( rhrist himat 

would appear in the olouds, ooming down 

from heaven ; 1 ind the 

tramp of God. They would surround the 

Bon of in. in. whose glory and • 

would cxcci'd anything that could 1*' 

imagined. I sties should be 

bed apon twelve thrones, at his i 
The dead should rise in theii own 
.md the Mom sh should judge the w 

Thie judgment would be shared bj 
in two i ategoriee m 

d and bad. The 

outed by angels. 8 '1 t would be 

ivcd in; ghtfu] abode, i 

for them from the foundal 

I 

81 ff i Cor. 

i 10 i i i :•:. - h i 
» Hi 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 47 

world. 1 There they would sit at table with 
Abraham, the patriarchs and the prophets. 2 
These would be the minority. 3 The others 
would go to Gehenna, a dark valley filled 
with fire. There they would be gnawed 
by worms, in company with Satan and the 
rebel angels. The fall of the angels, as 
related by Enoch, was at that time uni- 
versally admitted. 4 There would be weep- 
ing and gnashing of teeth. 6 The abode of 
the blessed would be like a closed hall, 
luminous inside, in the midst of a world of 
darkness and torment. 6 The new order of 
things would be eternal. Happiness and 
misery would be endless. 

We shall shortly show that Jesus appears 
to have held to the destruction of the 
wicked, — their annihilation ; but whether 
suffering or annihilation, their future state 
would be irrevocable, and, in consequence, 

1 Matt. xxv. 34. 

2 Matt. viii. 11, xiii. 43, xxvi. 29; Luke xiii. 28, xvi. 
22, xxii. 30. 

8 Luke xiii. 23 f. 

4 Jude 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4, 11 ; Rev. xii. 9 ; John viii. 44. 

6 Matt. v. 22, viii. 12, x. 2S, xiii. 42, . r )0, xviii. 8, xxiv. 
51, xxv. 30; Mark ix. 43. 

6 Matt. viii. 12, xxii. 13, xxv. 30; Jos. D. B. J. 3, 
8,5. 



48 Till hi AT II AND 

eternal. An abyafl lay between the alxxle 
of the blooaod and that of the damned. 1 

The Son of liiitn, ■ seated on 

right hand of Qod, would be tt. 
judge ol 

Jerai had been m i 
that all tl 

believed that the end world waa 

\ti\ time if 

Were mntinua]'. i alypae 

declares it t<» !*• in three and a hall 

I- time v 
r set a t 
that be knen not the exaol time, the 
and boor were unknown t«. him. 4 It waa 
to \n M. d nraal be read] 

d.-j.art. must 1. dad and 

their lamp- kindled, i weie to be 

i Lab 

■ i.i 

• Art* ii. i:,,n 1 ' 1 Tim 

H 14; I Tin. JMMtT.a, P; Jud* 

18; *j 1'. •■ ■ ■. i I, tt. ft, It, in it. i' l* 

■ 
4 K.v i .1. wii in M 

*> k. 14. Of Dai ..- . 

: 1 Matt. 

x\n rfti M I I PlBt 

iii. 10. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 49 

taken unawares as by a thief, or by a 
lightning flash. 1 

Yet the proximity of the day was immi- 
nent. There is no possible equivocation 
as to this proximity as affirmed by Jesus.' 2 
"This generation shall not pass away 
until all be accomplished." "There be 
those among you who shall not taste of 
death before the kingdom of God have 
come." 3 The signs of the times were 
clear. 4 The Church l>elieved that John, 
whose life was very long, would see the 
day before his death. 5 

We have already seen that Jesus ad- 

1 Luke xvii. 24. 

2 Matt. x. 23, chaps, xxiv. and xxv., and especially 
xxiv. 34 ; Mark xiii. 30 ; Luke xiii. 35, xxi. 28 8. 

8 Matt. xvi. 28, xxiii. 86, 39, xxiv. 34; Mark ix. I; 
Luke ix. 27, xxi. 32. 

4 Matt. xvi. 2-4; Luke xii. 51-56. 

5 John xxi. 22, 23. It ii hard to understand how the 
most perspicacious interpreters, during so many centu- 
ries and even to-day, have been unable to perceive what 
is said in these Gospels. They are blinded by an a pri- 
ori, and allegorize because the event did not take place. 
It is incredible how the critical faculty can obliterate 
itself to this point. Men see not that which is, that 
which stares them in the face, because they cannot see 
it. I do not say, because they will not ; no, they are 
sincere ; but truly this involuntary blindness is very 
strange. 

4 



50 THE DEATH AM J 

mitted the resurrection of the dead. It 
was a somewhat new doctrine, unknown 
to some, rejected by others. 1 Among the 
Pharisees it was B matter of fail. 

The nature of tin- resurrection Life was a 
subject of inquiry. Borne said, "They will 
eat, will drink, will marry.' 1 Jesus 
eluded marriage. a He admitted a tab! 

feast, ;t new | BT, ' 

Ajb to the wicked, he had two docfc 
sometimes he Looked for their annihila- 
tion j they should wholly die. This was 
to In- their punishment, and the righto 
alone were to ru »•• At other t; 

Jeans thought that the wicked would rise 

again, to In* eternally punished. 1 

With regard to these points of i 
In introduced do innovations. All t!, 
apocalyptic doctrines were in Daniel, 1 in 

I Mark iv '.»; I.uk. 

■ Daniel xii. 2 f Acts 

xxiii. B, s ; Sot 1 . / wiii. 1. B; D - 1 4. 

ami B, I 

8 See ohap. i ]•}'. n*» f. Jam laplring t<> the Sa*l- 

4 Matt. xwi. B8 : Lafcl 

b Lake dr. 14, a (fit I f. ; 

1 Than It. II t : i Badiaf la 

6 Matt. xxv. .12 ff 

7 Chaps, ii., vi.-viii.. ami x.-xiii. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 51 

Enoch, 1 in the Sibylline Oracles, 2 and 
Jesus accepted these contemporary beliefs 
without discussion. 

They have been proved false by the 
event, for the imminent renewal of all 
things did not take place, and the second 
Christian generation was tempted to say 
that Jesus was mistaken. The apocryphal 
Epistle of Peter has preserved for us the 
echo of the agonies of conscience suffered 
by the disciples of that time. 3 

How was it, then, that Christians re- 
mained Christians after their Master had 
been, as it seemed, convicted of error? 
Because they found in his teachings other 
passages to which they could give an inter- 
pretation which calmed their fears. Jesus 
had said that the gospel must be " preached 
to all nations " before the end should 
come. 4 The end, then, was not imminent. 
In the parable of the Mustard Seed, in the 
figure of the leaven which acts little by 
little, he had predicted a slow work, 
which would doubtless go on for a very 
long time. And then, they would add, 

1 Chap, i., xlv.-lii., lxii., xciii. ff. 

2 iii. 573 ff., 652 ff., 766 ff., 795 ff. 

8 2 Peter iii. 3 ff. * Matt. xxiv. 14. 



52 THE DEATH AJTD 

above all, he predicted a Pali is, a 

renewal of all things; and has I 
newal not taken p] The Idngdoo 

i is the Church, a kingdom of Hie 

spirit in which all an* kings and priests. 
is had also the upliftii: 

tlir Lowly, the insignificant, and tin- j 
of the rehabilitation oi the humble; this 
the true kingdom. 

JeSQS had said of this Uplifting 

that it is .siiuj.lv the preparation for the 

kingdom, and in his mind tin- slow action 

of leaven and the al i Lopment 

inn- 1 .tr. I seed did not 
turies, bal simply a d*\ 

The Chnrch has said: .Ions founded 
the kingdom, and thii 
Church. In thus speaking she is l»»th 
right and wrong: wn atly 

Jesus did not -• of the kingdom 

1 Soe ■ Jeeu* I 

the com* 
big <«f the kingdom ; bot I ■<( thi* nj 

ties. 
If .1. | 
his point "f view knfl ftBltfa Wl ill. And D 

uore 
ire repe n t irhnt hnenlrendj been mid 

disprove a win.';. .nee. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 53 

under several different forms and in divers 
successive manners. No; like all his con- 
temporaries, he called the kingdom of 
God the state of things described by the 
apocalypses of his people. But the 
Church was also right, for Jesus — it can- 
not be too often repeated — never indulged 
in speculation, and never kept strictly to 
any defined theory of the kingdom of 
God, to any inflexible theological construc- 
tion in which nothing could ever be 
changed. In this sense he was not a Jew, 
and he never pictured to himself the king- 
dom of God as a wholly exterior and 
miraculous advent of some enormous, 
indescribable mechanism descending from 
heaven. The Christian Church has made 
no mistake in looking upon Jesus, not as 
the hero of senseless apocalyptic dreams, 
but as the hero of freedom, of conscience, 
and the establishment of a new idea of 
worship. It has made no mistake in say- 
ing that with Jesus the kingdom of God 
is the kingdom of souls that belong to 
God; for he established the worship that 
is in spirit and in truth, a purer wor- 
ship than that of Moses. The idea of a 
temporal revolution never occurred to 



54 Till DEATH AS I) 

him ; he ne i pted it. not even for ■ 

second. The social side of his work 
onlyaresull religions side, and was 

to be realized only in the futu. 
Jesus had Baid nothii than I 

"The world is oomin( □ end, 

mud detach j a your 

life and iviM.ii! would 

inwr haw BUT] n UlC I 

The i !*• thi <»f 

righteousness, and when he OTvated a 

ohurofa destined to prepare for the i 

the kingdom, and which, until 
time when Ids kingdom should con . 
to pray bo I tod, M Thy kingdom 
he showed an admii ioiL 

doubt he did oof abolish s single 
of the apocalyptic pie, 

but he fulfill wed 

them. \ if death, the apostles 

Paul first of all — n hell 

which i i the living germ which 

Jesus had sc a ttered 
preaching, and showed that he had ful- 
filled, that is, developed out of the dreams 
of his people, all :ial truth I 

they contained. 

1 1. l j 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 55 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM 

\X7"E have spoken of the elation of the 
disciples and their expectation of 
the imminent appearance of the kingdom. 
They entered rival claims for the more im- 
portant places in it, which for that matter 
was what the Pharisees were doing every 
day. 

On the way to Jerusalem, on one of 
those 1 , days when Jesus was walking alone 
before the others, absorbed in thought, 
Salome asked of him the two highest 
places for her two sons. 1 Jesus, who 
also was expecting the kingdom, did not 
discountenance this hope ; he did not con- 
test the notion that Salome's two sons 
might receive their reward in this present 
life, and shortly be seated on thrones judg- 

1 Matt. xx. 20 f. ; Mark x. 35 f. See " Jesus Christ 
Before his Ministry," p. 143. 



56 Till DEATH A 

ing the brib ael ; he simply d 

that it was not be, bat the Path . 

would award I aces; ami then be 

related to the disciples a parable 1 In 

which he made allusion to liti- 

Cal event, tl . son 

ci l [erod. 1 l< I 

thf investituiv : bat I • J 
him, had sent a d- 

emperar, M WT< a 111 n I 

reign <>\. and bad gained tlwir cause. 

Finally Jet ised the ■ 

speaking with tl >^ purpose 

ing 1 1 it • m that he thou! U> pat 

to deaths The apostles did n«'t un 

stand, and full the 

ignal, I 
w. ire 1 1 3 not soon to open ' Would 
the trumpet soon I 
the 

the kingdom and of 

in all things <>f whieh Jesus 1 

spoken? But Jesus did i liese 

ideas: he believed t : 

kingdom to be .it a lab r date than 

disciples supjM- I. I .«■ |iara- 

hles of thii l«>rd 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 57 

who "delayed his coming," the father who 
"went a long journey," the bridegroom 
who "tarried." 

There is here no difference between the 
early preaching by the lake side and that 
of the closing period of his life. In both 
the kingdom is at hand, but its coming is 
not immediate; his people were so little 
prepared, his Galilean work had so com- 
pletely fallen below his expectations, that 
the coming of the kingdom was by so 
much retarded ; and besides, must not his 
death come first? This was what he was 
asking himself, and he believed it to be 
the case. 

And yet he would make one last attempt ; 
instead of entering the city quietly like 
any pilgrim from abroad, as he had always 
done hitherto, he would try a peaceful 
manifestation which might, he hoped, 
arouse a popular movement in his favor. 
He felt indeed that the time was becoming 
more and more decisive ; he must be ready 
for any event. 

How the times had changed ! Formerly 
he used to check the apostles, used to say 
to them, "Be ye wise as serpents;" 1 he 
1 Matt. x. 16. 



58 THE in. Mil AND 

had shunned publicity, and had hid 

himself when the people i 

claim him king; now he was about to by 

to assume this title, 

to him. 1 !«• resolved I -. in 

a solemn \>\- /. 

dieted that the M< Bsiah would ento 

aalem riding on an ass; 1 J new this 

. which in hll mind was a prop] 

iription of the com the nati 

kin/ II < • - on 

an animal thai mbol of jK^aoe. 

In fart the 088 was the animal ridd. n i»y 

kingfl in time « d 

to fulfil this prophecy. Hia Intel 

meet and real;. ■■ . '.n. I [e thl 

made preparation Cor this 
Precisely at n hal time did this mani- 
ii ' ( tally Ave days h I 

is, only 

four or 

was oruoifled on the fii ast, 

if not ind.-ed on the day before it. 

It has I ked if it is not necessary 

to place the triumphal entrance into .Feni- 

Balem at an earlier date; if the traditional 
date of Palm Sui not too late. 

1 Zcch. ix. 9. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 59 

Must we really date it on the first day of 
the week in which Jesus was put to death ? 
We think so. No doubt we have said that 
it is impossible to represent to ourselves 
all the acts which the Synoptics relate or 
presuppose as having been accumulated in 
the first days of the week which then 
began; we have pointed out with what 
facility at some distance of time memories 
are crowded together, and a whole series 
of events which in fact occurred much 
earlier, and which ought to be distributed 
over a long space of time, crowded into 
the last days, or even the last hours, of a 
man's life. Acts seen from a distance 
are massed, foreshortened ; ' but still we 
believe that the entry into Jerusalem is 
properly placed on the first day of the 
week of Jesus' death. The statements of 
the Fourth Gospel on this point are very 
positive and appear to be entirely authentic. 
In fact, Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for 
the Feast very late, though the custom 
was to arrive early, in order to perform 
the purifications. His enemies, not see- 
ing him come, believed that he was again 
escaping them. 2 

1 See note ou page 11. 2 John xi. 56. 



60 THE 1> v/y 

Why this delay ' I 

arranging I ils of his triumphal 

entry, because he wished it to this 

very moment and no r, that it mi 

solemn sa possi 
He had halted I 
been said, then houses open t<» 

him, - that of Martha ami Man. and I 

of Simon, called fch I hose the 

latter. 1 .Martha served, and .v 
ing near t<> the h 'Jesus 

reclined, poured over his B 

perfume and w iped them * 
her Long ha 

inting 
my bod) beforehand for bu 1 1' was 

then >till ooou] 
approaching death. I 
public execution his b nld not be 

embalmed; funeral hoi 
t«» those who were put 

all to : 

this woman had embalmed his I 

hand. II«' thru 

would shortly occur; this won 

If thus d it. 

I yet "ii th«- | this 

D \ii. 1-11 ; M.irk \ 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 61 

Bethany retreat to attempt a triumphal 
entrance. All the time he had this double 
thought: "I am to die, and yet I still 
hope." 

He had foreseen everything, and pre- 
pared for it with equal care and prudence. 
It is very noteworthy that Jesus arranged 
this manifestation by himself alone, and 
without speaking of it beforehand to any 
of his apostles, even to those dearest to 
him. He desired to keep it secret to the 
last moment, and himself arranged its 
smallest details all unknown to his friends. 

He had friends in Jerusalem who are 
still unknown to us, with whom, perhaps 
from motives of prudence, lie had not 
even made his disciples acquainted. He 
had arranged with some of these that on 
the first day of the week, at a certain hour, 
an ass with her colt by her side should 
be fastened before a door at a certain 
cross way, in the hamlet of Bethphage, at 
the foot of the Temple wall. The place 
was visible at some distance from the top 
of the Mount of Olives, and when Jesus 
sent two of his disciples thither he could 
point out from afar the place where they 
would find the beasts. A signal had been 



62 THE DEATH AND 

agreed upon, and the unknown friends 
who were to lend them to him were to lei 

them go at the words *' T: \ath 

need of them.' 1 This was in Borne sort i 
word which wu to make them know 
that they were in pi oi .1- 

The two disciples (lid , 
hid. They repeated the WOldfl and \'. 

able 1" carry out their mission. J< 
who had awaited their retain on the 
Blount of ( )li\ i d himself upon the 

animal and following tin- POad that 1' 
to the city, solemnly d it. 

Galileans, his disoiples who had I 
the least, followed him with acolamati 
Some had put their garments on the ass, 
as a sort of trappings, others had 

them Upon the mad: : I palms 

and Strewed them in th* 

"Hosanna! Blessed is he that oometh in 

the name of the Lord I " Th< 

thus t<» inaugurate the kingdom. J< 

permitted them to name him the national 

Kdng, the King of Israel. ] 

A year BgO he had rejected this title; 

now he aooepta n. h the hour is 

1 Lul 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 63 

come. The time is come to strike a great 
blow; it is at last time that his people 
come to a decision. If they welcome 
him, the kingdom will come, and his 
death will not be necessary. 

Thus Jesus gave all possible publicity 
to this entrance into Jerusalem. It was 
an invitation to the multitude to recognize 
him, to welcome him, — some as the Mes- 
siah, others as the precursor of and pre- 
parer for the kingdom. 

The Galileans, that is to sa} r , his friends, 
those whom he had already gained, alone 
responded. They were enthusiastic, and 
the entrance of Jesus was certainly a 
triumph. But the procession included 
only these. Not one of the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem joined them. 

According to the Fourth Gospel, 1 some 
of the Jerusalem ites came out to meet 
Jesus ; but they came only out of curios- 
ity, and with no conception of what it 
was all about, for they asked, "Who is 
he?" 2 And the Galileans, and only 
they, replied, "It is Jesus, the prophet 
of Galilee." 

Such was the scene. 

1 John xii. 18. 2 Matt. xxi. 10. 



64 THE DEATH AND 

Let us insist upon the profound signifi- 
cance of this solemn not of • 

On his part, the entrance into Jerusalem 
was a supreme attempt to be welcomed 
us the national Messiah! bo conn 
people, who might him as 

their head, in order to prepare them 
the ooming of the kingdom* \W can only 
repeat here what we have several tu 

said: up to his last lmur, e\vn in (i.th- 

wemane, Jesus believed that he might be 
recognized l>y his people as the Messiah 
whom they were av. and hoped that 

thus a violent death might be i 
The scene in (Sethi 
pointed out in our ftrsi volume, 1 has 

lonable meaning if it is w 
plained. His sympathy with I 

hopes explains his attitude OO Palm Sun- 
day; he believed in s national messianic 

kingdom, and approved of 1 

believing in it. He might 

that manifestation, mi hidden 

himself, as he had done the J 

on the lake side. 1 !!«• nut only did not d<> 

so, hut it was lie who had desired this D 

I Bm ".!■ 
1 John \ i 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 65 

ifestation, had arranged it, and prepared 
for it by himself alone, with the help of no 
one, not even of one of his apostles. 

We know, then, what at this time was 
his whole thought as to the kingdom of 
God, and all that was said in the fore- 
going chapter concerning his final notion 
of the kingdom is fully confirmed. 

Let it be clearly observed that Jesus 
never opposed the belief of his apostles in 
the speedy coming of a visible, external 
kingdom, that he never even rejected the 
idea of an external messianic domination. 
At the temptation he rejected a worldly 
domination which might be obtained only 
by homage to Satan ; but he did not reject 
it in itself considered. 

If Jesus accepted, without the slightest 
resistance, the ovations of his people, if he 
even sought them, it is because he accepted 
the idea of a national messianic kingdom ; 
for he perfectly well knew that this was 
what those expected and proclaimed who 
sang "Hosanna!" and he accepted and 
approved of their homage. He had desired 
it, sought it; as clearly as possible he had 
invited the people to render homage to 
him. There was therefore no misunder- 

5 



G6 THE DEATH AND 

standing between himself and those who 
welcomed him. 

His conduct proves without 
that Ik; shared the hopes «»t" I 

and looked apOD him.M-lf as the king of a 

national messianic kingdom. The bom- 
age paid him and d by him v. 

paid to the Jewish Messiah. To ai 

the contrary is I without a shadow 

of proof— that Jesus vru playii 
of accommodation, — a comedy which la* 
had himself planned and ai 
in spite, tl 

monitin! -id h.mi ' nh- 

ing death, Jesus was Btill hoping thai 
kingdom might be established, purely 
religions and snoh ss the j 

ribecL I [e would found it by pa< 
means. A mini le Erom the Rather would 
no doubt hasten its oomin or him, 

it was in order t<> arouse 

tinu'Ut that he act. <1 SS lie did that day. 
He was a patriot, and he d< lired 
country's 

fes, I well know that death, a horrible 
death, | he had 

Spoken of it to Mary the d, | the 

'hany. The idi 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 67 

him; he had already thought that in it 
might lie the salvation of his people and of 
the world ; for this salvation depended on 
his obedience, and his obedience would go 
as far as his Father willed that it should go. 
To renounce, to serve, to give himself, to 
give himself every day, even to the last 
sacrifice, if necessary, — this was his work, 
because the coming of the kingdom was 
on this condition ; if he died, — well, life 
would come out of his death, as the wheat 
comes out of the seed after it has fallen 
into the ground and died; and in the soul 
of Jesus the thought of the approaching 
end, the dread, the almost certainty of 
death, and the opposing hope, hope invin- 
cible, hope against hope, dwelt side by 
side. It would all be as the Father willed. 
He must at this time have repeated and 
applied to himself the words lie had for- 
merly said : " Sufficient unto the day is the 
evil thereof ; the morrow will take care for 
itself." 1 

In any case the kingdom, the true, final 
kingdom, was always in the future. Jesus 
no more founded it by entering Jerusalem 
riding on an ass, escorted by an enthu- 

1 Matt. vi. 34. 



68 THE DEATH AND 

siastic crowd, than he had founded it 

before that time. II»' was pr Ear 

and that is all. 
On that d,i . failed* I [( 

perceived il dly had he set out 

llif city: whih- yet upon the Mount of 
Olives, at the moment when the 1 1. I 

fnM oame into view, be had i ol 

Of what awaited hini, and he shed b 

The\ v. ied from him b 

the incredulity of hi thai 

moment he had b tion 

that his h< Id 1m- snatched a 

from him* And \. : he irould go forward, 

he would permit the aOOlai . la- 

would make Kris appeal t<. tl. : he 

would go "ii t«» the end. Bran while de- 
claring that they would ii' 
understand him. 1 This attiti.. 
lily human and Ik- und- 

He was attempting a triumph, and at the 
very momenl when he tasted of it he felt 

it escaping him. It was one umiv teach- 
ing added t.» so man e must 

die. 

In fact his want oi 

plete. In the enormoofl afflux iple 

.1 r 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 69 

in these days of festal preparation the 
little procession of Galileans passed almost 
unperceived. The people of Jerusalem 
did not in the least understand it, and did 
not even know who this triumphant hero 
was, or what was expected of him ; Jeru- 
salem had no love for provincials, least of 
all for those who came with a degree of 
local renown. The burghers of the city 
were thoroughly impregnated with the 
Sadducean spirit. Cold, prudent, circum- 
spect, they were unwilling to be excited; 
they asked who was this Jesus, and the 
answer they received made them smile. 
A prophet, — from Nazareth, in Galilee. 
" No good thing could come out of Naza- 
reth;" 1 and the little company was, so to 
speak, lost in the crowd which was throng- 
ing the streets and gateways. 

All the Galilean lack of success was as 
nothing compared with this; Jesus had 
only succeeded in irritating his enemies 
the more. The Pharisees, as furious as 
the Sadducees, allied themselves with 
them against him; these irreconcilable 
enemies forgot their bitter hatred in the 
union of a common danger. They would 

1 John i. 47. 



70 TEE DKATB AND 

face it together, and take up their quai 

again after it was over. The d< 
Jesus had already b as a 

principle, and now hia attempt apoo Jeru- 
salem, his would-be triumph, was • 
drop in a cnj. already over full \ the mat 
moat be oarried through without 

On W meil was held in 

the pal Joaeph Caiaphaa; 1 it was 

decided to i im. 

To bring him U \ put him to 

death, for the law against Bacrilege was 

isivelj 
Bible 1 1 The Baddnoeee 

hesitation, being alara Ives 

and thi-ir privileges. Tl. 

mined to push the matt . not 

merelj I 

any popular moremenl wa* 

them, inn because they tali their power 

threaten 

The jiu, Sadduoees, absolutely 

nothing in the country, was still \ 
in the Temple 

priests ooold be recruited only am 
them, and the | use- 

ful personages. The priests, the Temple, 

1 Matt xwi 1-5; Mark 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 71 

were a never-failing source of revenue for 
the city ; the pilgrims who came thither in 
throngs brought with them much money. 
It was necessary then to get rid of this man. 

The only preoccupation of the members 
of the council held at the High Priest's 
palace was to avoid all disturbance, all 
popular excitement. They therefore ad- 
opted a plan which from their point of 
view was very wise, — to postpone the 
execution of the warrant of arrest until 
after the Feast. The delay would be of 
only ten days at most, and it seemed 
imprudent to proceed earlier. They could 
not tell precisely how many partisans 
Jesus had in the city. They thought he 
had many. In this they were in error; but 
in any case the pilgrims from Galilee were 
for him, and to arrest him in the midst of 
the Feast would be to provoke an uprising. 

As for Jesus, his faith in his work, in 
his Father, in himself, did not waver for a 
second. But lie was forced to form a new 
plan. 

First of all he would withdraw and con- 
ceal himself. He had said, " If they per- 
secute you in one city, flee into another." 1 

1 Matt. x. 23. 



72 Till, hi Mil AND 

At a later time he proald resume his min- 
istry with his twelve apostL I ime 
being it was his dul lies, 
and with this he D : n him- 
self. 

The very day of the triumph 
the BibI day of the week, he I 
as soon as even iiii: closed in. 1 this tim. 
foot, and w in the 

beloved villi .. • Bethany, 
he retnrned wed 

him anly in the I inn- 

ing his disoonxses and well 

knowing thai do one would d rest 

him in the ] I n hroad 

da\ Light He n i till hopL he 

ad in ] : he would 

ten the honr <»f th< 
it from Btriking when : <1. 

Jesus 

full 
obedient h minnt 

the same time he was sn<! wful in 

tins waiting and onoertainty; his presenti- 
ments wen 

1 I hart ihowa thai the pu tat Temple 

on thai day is iMdmiaal I *t During 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 73 

defined, and yet they were only presenti- 
ments; he passed through moments of 
dread, of agitation, of anguish. One day 
he was heard to cry, " My soul is troubled ; 
Father, save me from this hour!" 1 He 
was still hoping, then; he said, "Save 
me! " He still believed that his death might 
be avoided; he asked this of his Father. 
Never was he more divine than in these 
hours of complete and real humanity. 

1 John xii. 27. 



74 THE DEATH AND 



CHAPTER V 

EH I 

J ESI s came in! lalem, then, on 

h "lie of t: 

triumphal entry. H< irai pi 
to keep the Paseovei there, as was 
custom j he had thi 

.* and the it with the 

olee 

waits by t ; is thai followed. M- 

had do suspicion, he could 

pidity \\ ith \\ hich I 

li l-l i in-.. 

How liiutli d 
were being I 

, u> i onj i tore. Aj p i 

was on Wi 

ancst and j-ut hill tth was defini- 

tively taken i bat al the same I 
thing was postponed until after thi 

1 i 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 75 

It was not merely an uprising of the people 
that the Sanhedrin feared, but also, per- 
haps, complications with the Roman power. 
Pilate was there, and it would be wise to 
wait until he was gone, 1 and the city had 
resumed its usual quiet and returned to 
its normal number of inhabitants. 

It was then absolutely settled by the 
Sanhedrin that for the time being Jesus 
was not to be disturbed; he was to be 
arrested, with as little publicity as pos- 
sible, as soon as the Feast days were over, 
the bulk of the pilgrims gone, especially 
the pilgrims from Galilee, and Pilate 
returned to Caesarca. Then his trial 
should proceed according to the usual 
forms, which were very long and minute. 
All should be done with strict legality; 
Jesus should be condemned to death, and 
should die by stoning. All this had been 
intelligently ordered. It was thought, with 
reason, that to arrest Jesus when the city 
was crowded with strangers would be 
most imprudent; and as, on the other 

1 Pilate resided at Corsarea, and came to Jerusalem 
only at times of the great feasts, precisely in order to 
keep down the disturbances which might occur on these 
occasions. Josephus, Ant. Jud. 18, 5, 3. 



76 THE DEATH AM) 

hand, it w. is forbidden to leave Jerusalem 
and return borne before the Feast * 
entirely completed, 1 the Sanhedrin w 
Dearly certain that their prey would not 
escape them. 

Were all these j.lalis and de< 

the assembly reported to Jesus? Since he 
had friends and acquaintances in .Jerusa- 
lem, since he bad 

Sanhedrin itself, Joseph of Arimathea, 
Nicodemus, 8 — it is \ ven 

probable, that one of them had wai 
him thai very Wednesi dl that had 

just been plotted. 
This, then, was what 
Ived: to remain quietly in Jerusalem 

Long as the ! lasted, for it had 

n formally said, " Not during the I 

days i " as soon as the days 

of unleavened bread i lomplis] 

ami disappear for a time. Il«' thou 
perhaps, of hiding bin d from the 

Twelve, and . hall presently see 



f Jesoa < 
p, MS. 

i.uk. wi;: 50] John iii. i ff., riL 
:,o if. 

Matt KX?i B ; Mark \i\. J. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 77 

some reason for conjecturing, appointing a 
place of meeting them in Galilee at a later 
time. This plan might have been carried 
out but for the treachery of Judas. It 
was the Iscariot, the man of Kerioth, who 
brought about the arrest by the San- 
hedrin during the Feast, and thus fixed 
the day of Jesus' death. We shall shortly 
see how. 

Did Jesus know, as early as Wednesday, 
that one of his disciples had been seen in 
secret conference with certain members of 
the Sanhedrin? It is quite possible. He 
certainly had his suspicions ; the very next 
day he said, "One of you shall betray 
me," 1 but he had no material proof such 
as would permit him openly to point out 
the traitor. 

Meanwhile, with much prudence and 
wisdom, he took the most minute precau- 
tions for his personal safety during the 
last days of his life ; and it seems entirely 
probable that but for the infamous conduct 
of Judas he might have escaped his ene- 
mies. His measures were so well taken 
that nothing less than the treachery of one 

1 Matt. xxvi. 21 
John xiii. 21. 



78 THE DEATH AND 

of the Twelve themse] ded for 

liis apprehension. 

He aever passed a night in Jerusalem. 
A surprise while he and his disciples v. 
sleeping in the common ohaml 
unnamed friend would fa 
enough. Therefore he quitted the city 
every evening, and slept in some suburban 
[arm. It is probable that he often ohai 
his shelter! and never meutio] 
hand which one he would choose. 

However this may I there was 

one whither he went, if not 

at least BOmewhat often, 1 li<» «loul»l 

it appeared to him to l»<- particularly i 

It was an Orchard halnnging tO B farm 

devoted to the production of olive oiL 

An <»il preSS WB8 one i 

and near the oil press WBS a pleasure 
house, a sort of villa.- Th( pTO] 
Longed to a friend dis- 

ciple, of whom tin many around 

him in his hist days. 

In this orchard .1 (ton passed I 

early hours of the night with his diaei] 

1 Luke xxii. N ; Johfl x\ iii. 'J. 
1 This is the meaning <>f x<*^ 01 H*M XXV1 
Mark xiv 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 79 

It was a refuge where he could collect his 
thoughts and pray in all security ; for the 
Twelve alone knew of this retreat, and 
thus far none of them had inspired the 
slightest distrust. 

Later in the evening he would climb the 
closely wooded, thickly peopled Mount, 
on which several houses offered him a 
secure shelter. The fig-trees, the palms, 
the olive-trees gave their names to these 
villages, farmsteads, suburbs of the city, 
— Bethphage, Gethsemane, Bethany. 

At the top of the Mount was the country- 
house of the famous Annas; he also had 
bazaars there, — four shops placed under 
two great cedars. 1 Jesus knew well all 
these environs of the city, and could easily 
conceal himself among them. 

But the safest of all these retreats was 
that of Gat-Chamena 2 (Gethsemane), of 
which mention has already been made, for 
it was probably the only one which was 
known only to the Twelve and the friend 
who owned it. It is possible that Jesus 

1 Jerus. Taanith, 4, 8. 

2 Gat, press, chamena, oil. Now Dschesmanye (Matt, 
xxvi. 36 ; Mark xiv. 32) ; Gethsemanei in the Greek of 
the Gospels. 



80 THE DEATH AXD 

and the apostles Bometin* tin- 

whole night there, cither wrapped in their 

mantles, under the trees, or in th< 

Itself. 

By day Jet ted nothing; he 

convinced, as we have said, that during 
the Feast he would surely not be i 
In open day in the publicity of the Temple. 
That la- did not at once return to Qalilee 
lire mis.- he greatly desired to keep the 
Passover at Jerusalem. It would I 
been the first time that he had failed to 
observe this touching custom of his people, 

and be could all the less brine; hin 

give it up, since he was in comparative 
security during all the days of unleavened 
bread. 

Therefore, hut (or Judas, nothing would 
have happened, i ime. 

What manner of man was this 
How could one of the i, one who 

had believed, one whom Jesus had 

upon whom lie had counted, one who 

certainly had his good qualitii 

would not ha\ med him for the 

apostolate, —how could he have fallen to 

this last infamy, to betray J( 

atrocity of hifl act i D at 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 81 

first incomprehensible. A truly terrible 
change must have been going on in his 
mind, especially during the first days of 
this week, or at least on the Thursday, 
when he made his horrible resolve. 

The attempt has been made to find 
special motives for the betrayal ; the Fourth 
Gospel speaks of his avarice, and even 
says that he was a thief. He may have 
been cheating Jesus for some time past, 
appropriating to himself a portion of the 
gifts made to the common purse; and 
thus, little by little, he may have been led 
away by avarice. Being the cashier of the 
community, he may have desired to have 
more money than he could possess while 
remaining a member of it. This is no 
doubt a possible explanation, but after all 
there is a long distance between the most 
shameless cupidity and the betrayal of 
one's master, the betrayal of Jesus. 

It has been supposed that, seeing in 
Jesus the national Messiah, and dissatisfied 
because he did not make some splendid 
manifestation of himself, Judas had thought 
to force him to declare himself by giving 
him up to the Sanhedrin, thus hemming 
him in a corner from which he would find 

6 



82 THE DEATH AND 

a way of escape by a brilliant miracle. 
The supposition is charitable but inad- 
missible. 

What! Judas could have still been a 
believer! He could have betrayed J< 

by reason of a BOTt of unbalanced faith in 
him! The supposition is wholly absurd. 

for if he had still believed Jesus to be the 
tin*- Messiah he would have left him to 
carry out his own plans, and would no! 
have dreamed of constraining him. 
when Judas betrayed Jesus he no Loi 

considered him to be the true MeSSiah, he 

no Longer believed in him. 

But does his loss of faith entirely sufliee 
to explain his tivaehery7 We do Dot 

think so. Saving ceased to believe, he 

had but to withdraw from the eompan 

the Twelve and return to obscurity: Off 

if he wished to oppose Jesus, he should 

have done it to his face, without conceal- 
ment. His loss of faith does not explain 
his profiting by his position as privil< 
member of the college of the Twelve to 
betray his former Master. 

How was it possible that he could remain 

an apostle, continue to call .1 bbi, 

play the comedy of fidelity and even of 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 83 

affection to the very last day? This last 
extreme of perfidy is perfectly certain, 
entirely historic, but to this day it remains 
enigmatical from very f rightfulness . Of 
all acts of this kind, the act of Judas is 
certainly one of the most appalling in its 
revelation of the degree of baseness to 
which man may descend. 

And yet there are examples of similar 
acts of treachery. There are sometimes 
found in secret societies — the observation 
has often been made — members who be- 
come Judases, who take upon themselves 
to be denunciators. They are to be found 
among the most ardent, whose enthusiasm 
has received a check. Traitors are not 
infrequent in clandestine associations. 

It is perhaps here that we must seek the 
true explanation, for the act that took 
place here is evidently of this order. From 
a zealot Judas became a traitor. He was 
one of the fanatics of the little community, 
one who was planning great changes, form- 
ing grand projects; and suddenly this 
fanatic turned upon the community and 
denounced its head. A phenomenon of 
this sort has its psychological explanation, 
and it is verified by history. 



84 THE DEATH AM) 

In the case which concerns us I 

we can up to B certain point di the 

cause of the at e in Jud 

It is not enough to say that he Loi 
money; aot much bettor to say that 
had Lost bis laith. What 
have taken place in the soul of this man 
is this: Judas bad proclaimed the gospel, 
lie bad <ast out demons, he had looked for- 
ward to the kingdom and prep 
coming. Prom the first hoar he had been 

an enthusiast. And, 1. not!. 

that he was expecting had taken pL 

and instead ol helievii. . Like 

Peter and the others, and yielding him- 
self to the unwavering influent 

faith, which U< vents « . 

power t<> unsettle, he permitted him* 
he influenced b i be domini 

by them. After having lib 
peoted a thi >ra which 

the twelve tribes, \\i' had ceased b 
anything; he had fallen from thi - 

tits, and the fall had Uvli t 
In this mood of mind he had heard the 

Blaster speak of renun 

violent death; he had seen the frui' 

triumph of Palm Sunday. Jesus 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 85 

not been acclaimed, the priests were 
against him, the city was indifferent ! If 
the others remained faithful to him, it was 
only because they were attached to Jesus' 
person; but to believe in his Messianic 
claim was to be deluded indeed. If they 
were still under the influence of his claim, 
he, Judas, was so no longer. What! he 
saw Jesus taking precautions, seeking to 
avoid his enemies, hiding himself from 
death ! Oh, now he hated him, hated him 
for having deceived him, for having 
charmed, enchanted him, hated him for 
the delusion in which for nearly three 
years he had held him; the thought was 
agony that he had once believed and 
permitted himself to be deluded through 
his belief. And so at last he came to hate 
even to death him who had thus disap- 
pointed his hopes ! And from this hate he 
drew strength to put on a semblance of 
fidelity until he should have given him up 
to death. Add to this a sort of fear that 
took possession of him, of being involved 
in difficulties with the Jewish authorities 
if anything happened to Jesus. He must 
dissociate himself from him; let him place 
himself on the side of the strongest. 



8C THE Dl ATB AND 

This is certainly what took plai 
Judas. His hatred of J< impelled him 
to go to the Sanhedrin and say, **] will 
give him ap to yon it' you will pay me for 
it."' ' It ifl -and the mean- 

ing of this remark. Judas knew that the 
Sanhedrin dared □ 

the last <la tat, and he said to 

them, "It is i 
away before the dose of the Feast, he may 

:]><• you. tf yon w iah, I will A 
his hiding place. The Twelve aloi 
it, and I am one of the Twi Ive. I \% i 1 1 

choose in \ own time for it, ll. liest 

posKihlr. [will oome 

to you, and will eland 

DM D whom yO0 w ill Bend him." 

Judaa must have made his p rop os i tion in 

these terms, and it was d with 

rnt'ss. 
That Jesus died at this tin: I iforC 

due to Judas. Judas accepted money in 

exd thm q - up 

1 Matt w. |fl 

nin "f a littlo moro than ono liun.lrf.l franc*, 

. jlie I 

Ol Mill' III. . 

doUti 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 87 

the appearance of fidelity, he sought a 
favorable occasion, a propitious night. 

The imagination is bewildered by the 
infamy of this man. He had fallen to this 
point; so much is certain, and it is so mon- 
strous that we can understand those who, in 
pity for the wretch, have sought for extenu- 
ating circumstances ; but there are none. 

It was Wednesday, the eve of the day 
on which the Passover must be eaten, and 
Jesus decided to give orders for the prepa- 
ration of the paschal meal. To this end 
he doubled his precautions. This was 
necessary, for on that evening he would 
not be able to leave Jerusalem as early as 
usual. The paschal meal was a long one; 
it closed with the singing of several 
psalms, and it would not be possible to 
leave the city before ten or eleven o'clock 
at the earliest. 

Jesus made arrangements with a friend 
whom the apostles themselves did not 
know; in this matter he acted as he had 
acted with regard to his entrance into 
Jerusalem. Having reason to suspect 
some one of the Twelve, he told none of 
them in advance ; but it had been decided 
that at a certain hour in the course of 



88 THE DEATH AND 

Thursday this friend would Bend 
one, doubtless one of his servant 
place agreed upon, and that, as a means 
of recognition, this person should cany a 
pitcher of water. 

Two of the apostles, sent hy JcSUS, WOT 

to recognize him by this sign, and to fol- 
low him without speaking. Following 
hiin, they were to enter the house which 

he entered, and there, safe from UK 

observers, they would be brought 

the master <>f tin- house, t<> whom they 

We IV tO 

my chamber, where I may cat the I'ass- 
over with my disciples? ' " ' The ms 

WOUld thru show them a large < hamlx 

dining-room furnished with rags, com 

and all that was nOCOSSttry far a na-al. 

In thus confiding in only tl 
the master of the house and two apostles 

of whom he was entirely sure Petei and 

John, Jesus could be certain that 

house would not l>e poll 

emisi Sanhedrin, and that in it 

he might pass a few quiet hours. 2 

1 Mark xiv. 13, 1 t. 

■ Mate xwi. 1 ft".; Mark xiv. If; Luke x\ii 7 
John xiii. 1 IT. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 89 

Everything took place as had been fore- 
seen. The two designated disciples pre- 
pared the Passover, and Thursday evening 
having come, the Master and the twelve 
apostles repaired to the appointed house. 1 

1 A grave question arises here. Was it indeed the 
Jewish Passover which Jesus celebrated on this night, 
eating the paschal lamb with his disciples ? It is evi- 
dent that we have here two historic problems to solve. 
The first is the nature of the meal partaken of by 
Jesus on Thursday, the evening before his death : was 
it at an ordinary meal that Jesus instituted the Lord's 
Supper, or was it after celebrating the Jewish Passover 
that he instituted the Christian Passover ? The second 
problem is that of date. Was this Thursday the 13th 
or the 14th Nisan, and Jesus being crucified on the next 
day, Friday, was he crucified on the 14th or the 15th ? 

We shall not go over the history of these two ques- 
tions, which have been answered now in one way, now 
in another, and always with plausible arguments in favor 
of the solution proposed. If it is decided that Jesus 
kept the feast of the Jewish Passover, with all his race, 
on the 14th Nisan, and that this date fell on Thursday, 
the Fourth Evangelist is in error, for he gives the date 
of the supper as the 13th Nisan, and speaks not of the 
Passover, but of an ordinary meal; further, he says that 
Jesus was crucified in the afternoon of the 14th, at the 
hour when in the Temple the lambs were being slain 
that were to be eaten by the Jewish families that same 
evening. 

Notwithstanding the great value which we attach to 
the historic statements of the Fourth Evangelist, we 
believe that he is here in error, and we accept the 
Synoptic tradition that Jesus celebrated the Jewish 



90 Tin DEATE AND 

nrei on Thursday, which in that year fell on 
14th, and that be ma crncined on tl 

One principal mo( indiapntabla anthanti 

of t!i< 

cnrred at thii peechal b \Bte- 

rioni preparati 

was no! tnrented, tad pieh an nttorancri a* " With <ie- 

■Ve have 1 <le.-;: 
1 Miffer " (!.i 

'1 be only real diflfc t>een 

erncifieil <>n tin 

• dajr. 
'I bii difficulty baa a] II haa 

been ■oppoeed that wi«h Paae- 

ate the paaohal Ian 
othai Jewi ; bat thi 
The pairhnl lamb ■ 
the appointed day ; it would 
Pnithannotn, 

lialj know thai 
death wan iiuiniiM-nt . 

There renin 

til execution on the 15th Niaan: there waa no - 
Inipoaaihflitj. 
The 16th "f Ni 

-e of thi* clay 

Ition "f all w.irk on I N wm 

■ capital crime t«> kill ei 

then to admit that : eroded to 

an execution, in Baying all thia,onlj one thinp ha* 

been overlooked, it I the Jewe 

pal Jeana to deathi hut and the latter 

would u-'i be In tin .icule 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 91 

upon the Jews by crucifying one of them on the very 
day of the Feast. Pilate, who took special pains to 
mock the Sadducees by affecting to call Jesus their 
king, and to insist upon his royalty in the inscription 
placed above his head, might very easily have pushed 
the raillery which was intended to vex them so far as 
to make a special point of crucifying Jesus immediately 
after his condemnation, on the very day of the Feast, 
the day when Jerusalem was most crowded. Yes ; it is 
very true that the Jews executed no one on a feast 
day ; but the cross was not a Jewish mode of execution, 
it was exclusively Roman. Thus a difficulty which 
to many still seems to be insurmountable is entirely 
removed. 

Besides, occur when it might, the execution of Jesus 
was a very small matter. Nothing was more common 
at that time than executions commanded and carried 
out by the Romans. Thirty years before, Varus had 
caused two thousand insurgents to be crucified. During 
the war of the year 70, Titus crucified five hundred 
prisoners a day. In the face of such facts what was the 
crucifixion of three men only ? 

Finally, it has not been considered that a crucifixion 
would have been much more difficult on the eve of the 
15th, in the afternoon of the day when the lambs were 
being slain in the Temple, than on the day following. 
On the afternoon of the 14th the entire population was 
occupied with preparations for the great festival of the 
evening, and much more absorbed by the latter than by 
anything that could occur the next morning, the 15th, 
when they had so much the less to do because on that 
day rest was absolute. 

Let us further notice that when Nicodemus, Joseph 
of Arimathea, and the holy women were preparing the 
body of Jesus for burial, they all hastened the work be- 
cause the Sabbatic rest was about to begin (Mark xv. 



92 THE DEATH AND 

42 f. el paraB.), and not at all 1 • 

to go U) (at i he pitrhnl lamb vvith their families 'I 

bad eaten it on Thnndaj feast 

had already bean i elebnted. 

lor DBj then, this n. D is 

settled. 

It results, there! hn was mistaken. 

Whence oonld bin broi have ariaan ' to a 

dogmatic piapoateaaloB, Be 

\s hf-n be ' iinei <>f tin 

iniK-h less so when Bf he 

says that erhea PQate t.«.k hii seal 

and ] »wd with ; 

hold your king) 

anv doubt be ii mistaken ; u t i«»n. 

which placoi the cracttbdon 

death of Jetm iM-ars to be 

• vroithj ■ 
that .lesus, presented to tb oold havo 

been condemned, le ution, crucified, and 

i befofe sunset «»f the same 'lav. Waal 

tin- •!<►:: n .i --« K-i'>n .,f the | 

heehowi pal npon the ciees on the i.ith 

Niaan, :it the \< r\ : bal Iambi 

slain, l'",';ui-. 

acts. Ln his mind J< a ken away 

the sins .'f the irorld " (John ; 
mil as, on • 

value t<» his tesliui' 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 93 



CHAPTER VI 

THE LAST EVENING 

\\ 7E have arrived, therefore, at Thurs- 
day evening, April 6, of the year 
30, according to a chronological calculation 
which, though not entirely certain, has im- 
portant elements of probability. Accord- 
ing to the Jewish calendar, as we have 
shown, it was the 14th Nisan, the sacred 
evening which Jesus piously celebrated 
every year. 

The apostles and the Master were half 
extended, in Oriental fashion, upon cush- 
ions and rugs. 1 Jesus, presiding by right, 
broke the great flat cakes which served for 
bread, the dough of which had not fer- 
mented; he piled the broken pieces one 
upon another. Before the Master, cut 
into equal pieces, was the lamb which the 
two disciples whom Christ had chosen 
had caused to be killed a few hours earlier. 

1 Mark xiv. 15. 



94 THE DEATH ASH 

It had b I; and beside tin- dish 

of meat was a dish of Letta wild 

chicory, called M the dish oi 
Finally there was tl 

of a reddish oolor, in which each in turn 
dipped his pi i tied bn 

Pom times .' passed the cup around. 
After the & 

pari of the I [allel : ■ th, they 

ond part, 1 intoning the ^;i' 

words u ith full voices and full 

5 J( us ft 1 1 the i 
All possibility i 1 to bin 

1 « • Lost. It if 

there, in thai house, tl to his 

habit, he had nol 1< 
bow easj it would b 

And then, 
out of the reach oi d l** 

merely an exp< di< nt. < Hi, this Pasa 
which be had 
without hindrance! 1 It 1 
Bui afterward ? I low much L< ould 

he still Ik- tin : 1 just 

opening (for the religii 
this tiiih . ling to the •'• 

1 Hnlmi ( \iii i i 

• Luk. i 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 95 

would not find him there at its close. 
And yet he was sustained by his indomita- 
ble hope ; never had he been firmer in his 
faith. The kingdom would shortly ap- 
pear; he would not again drink of this 
fruit of the vine, this Passover wine, be- 
fore the banquet of the kingdom. 1 

So with the lamb and the unleavened 
bread, he was not again to eat them until 
the coming of the kingdom. He expected 
the kingdom then, that very year; he who 
knew not the hour appears in this place to 
point out at least the year, that very year. 
Then he spoke of the festival that was to 
come ; the apostles were to be seated at his 
table, in his kingdom, and very soon the 
Twelve would be sitting on thrones, at his 
side, 2 judging the twelve tribes. He then 
had perfect faith in his work, and all the 
hopes that he had thus far cherished were 
still his. 

He spoke also of his sufferings. He had 
desired to celebrate this Passover " before 
he suffered." Ah, how clearly he saw 
what great sufferings were awaiting him ! 
But anything so unforeseen as a sudden 

1 Matt, xx vi. 29 ; Mark xiv. 25 ; Luke xxii. 18. 

2 Luke xxii. 29, 30 



9G Till DEATH AND 

w\ tliat very night, follow 
demnatioo and Lmmedi ation all in 

than t\\fiit\ -tmir 1. ,r from 

his thought. We offer only one proof <>f 

this: in the tir>t r.-ntiiry a criminal process 

was Qot thus conducted; the guilty i 

ited, judged, and oondemned 
the same day, especially not in tb 
The existinj ally opposed it. It 

tory that duii 

should claj.sr iM'twtrii the judgmenl and 

the L, r i\ ing of sentem i . W\ then would 
bave supposed that in this eaae the 
would be broken, that ] . ould be put 

to death n 

[nation than of i Ian ful executii 

\\V bave said that it was Judas, by the 

decision which he mad< 

in the upper chamber, who fixed the 

of Jeaus 1 death, or at leasl th< night ol 

arrest It was he who, b 

Sanhedrin that them t<» 

modify their plan of waitin . • d diem 

to hasten things I point I 

V I . 

I'M r riaee Moaea c ,<• ms 

duett ol I ■ ith-'Ut tri.il 1 1 ». ut. xiii 1 I 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 97 

though on Thursday evening Jesus was 
still at liberty, at sunset of Friday he was 
already buried. 

Two interests occupied Jesus during 
that evening, — his sufferings and his 
kingdom. His disciples were to remain 
humble and insignificant, as a preparation 
for the kingdom; there must be no 
struggle for precedence; their present 
duty was to serve. 1 At this point St. 
John preserves a particularly touching 
detail. Jesus washed his disciples' feet 
before sitting down to table with them; 
showing them by a symbolic act what 
they were to understand by service. He 
told Peter that he should soon perceive the 
significance of this act, evidently alluding 
to an approaching humiliation, a supreme 
service, perhaps a sacrifice. He would 
obey as far as the Father should hid him 
obey. 

At another moment he said that it was 
needful that they should provide them- 
selves with swords. 2 He asked the apostles 
if they had wanted for anything when in 
Galilee he had sent them on a mission 

1 Luke xxii. 24, 27. Of. Jolm xiii. 4 ff. 

2 Luke xxii. 35-38. 

7 



98 Tin: DEATH AND 

bidding them lake neither pane, nor scrip, 

nor .i cIi.uj otwear. M We otb 

for nothing," replied the di Bui 

mm'," added J< let him wh 

pone bake it. and likewise him \\li<» has a 

si- rip ; and he who has 00 BWOld, let li im 

■ell his cloak and buy one, for I say onto 
you, that i ; - i>i be fulfilled 

in me, And ht- was numbered with the 

trail the thingfl which < 

• cm me air drawing t«» an end* 91 The 
apostles produced two which they 

had w ilh them : 01U ImT 

belonged to 01 

M Lord, here an M I 

enough,' 1 replied J< 

What d niran '.' .1. apfl^lring 

of buying I ad theme* I 

and him I And when I -\ him I 

declaring th.it two will be < I 

would not have been i uougfa if la* had 

really intruded t<» srrk the 

arms; and In- knew it had 

just asked them all t<> arm then 
Baying that he | 

cloak, a ne cessa ry garment! All thii 
highly inexplicable, it is probable I 
the reminiscen< the witnesses au» 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 99 

not very clear on this point ; they recall a 
dialogue which their memories have only 
half preserved. 

This is not surprising. At a later time 
the apostles recalled to mind this last 
meal, and understood its exceptional 
grandeur, which they had not at the time 
perceived, believing that Jesus was yet to 
be for a long time with them. The memory 
of this evening then became precious above 
all others, as the last hours spent with a 
beloved friend are always precious when 
he has been suddenly taken away from us. 
We seek to recall every one of the words 
of that last day; we take note of every- 
thing, fragments of phrases return to our 
memories, and rather than one should be 
lost, we preserve phrases which do not 
easily fit into o the re, and often are not 
easy to understand. 

No doubt Jesus told his disciples that 
the situation was no longer what it had 
been in Galilee; that they must give up 
the Essenian customs in which they had 
lived from day to day, with no change of 
garments, and no arms for self-defence 
against probable attacks of robbers when 
on their journeys. Was his thought about 



100 Till hi. Mil AM) 

swords connected with the with 

which the near future threatened himsi 
Perhaps. But when he Mud that two 
swords were enough, it was with the 
meaning "are d an ironical 

phra That will do, let it ( 

Jesus certainly had no desire that they 
Bhould make use <>f swords; he had no 
thought of an armed defence, II he and 
I'liti by an amb 

Such a thing would be so coi i all 

thai we know of him, that we cannot b 
ourselves to admit 

Jesus then at once abandoned I 
thought of buying 
fleeting impulse. I ' 

that, ii lie would (1 

■■ I will never ruled. " ' 

Jesus, who knew him, bow 

completely he yielded to the impuli 
moment! declared that he would g 
to deny him, even bo deny him t 1 

times - that is I times — if 

the P 

toted, and the ten others who heard him 

protested in their tun 

1 Mat! x 

- In Hebrew the Dumber .te and 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 101 

What else took place that evening? 
The apostles remembered afterward that 
Jesus had been oppressed by the thought 
that there was a traitor among them, and 
that he had said, u One of you will betray 
me." 1 When he uttered the words Judas 
remained unmoved. John, at a sign from 
Peter, asked, "Who is he?" Jesus, who 
merely had his suspicions, simply gave to 
Judas a bit of bread dipped in the cJiaroseth, 
saying in a low tone, " Observe to whom 
I give this." 

Not long after Judas went out; he was 
going to propose to the priests that he 
should immediately conduct them to the 
hiding-place at Gethsemane and arrest 
Jesus. It is possible that he perceived 
that his former Master had found him out, 
and that he feared to be too late if he did 
not act at once. In any case it is certain 
that even while Christ was in the very act 

nihilities several (2 Cor. xii. 8). Ought this saying of 
Peter to be placed later, ou the way to Gethsemaue, 
and was it only then that Peter protested his devotion 
to his Master ? We cannot tell ; this detail is one of 
those upon the order of which the Gospels are not in 
harmony. 

1 Matt. xxvi. 21-25; Mark xiv. 18-21 ; Luke xxii. 
21-23: John xiii. 21-30. 



102 Tin: DEATH AND 

of discerning ami almost proclaiming his 

infamy, Judas le to maintain the 

tranquil the criminal who coldly 

calculates and choOSd his tin 

Afl i'» -I dmt that ho 

had only a suspicion : if he H entire 

certainty, if la- had known in advance that 
.ludiis was to betray him that very ni 
In- would not, by silent given him 

the d >f aceotnpliahinj 

have done m would have I 
liis acoomplii <•. I !•• had, I 

i-pirioii. infill a] 

ml it .ludas wmi that pn 

moment, it was because tb 

ill'.; JeSILB that very night Middcnl 

mind. 
I [e calculated his ti- hour 

lb would leave t 1 
another he would In- in th< len, 

his usual retreat ; there was not a mil 

to ll 

When the traitor had 

Ik, and he talked a Long time. 
St. John ha the eohi 

hfa words, hut only their echo; for 
must look for the words th< behind 

the Johannean form ami 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 103 

amplifications of the writer of the Fourth 
Gospel. Nevertheless these three chapters 
(xiv., xv., xvi.) and the sacerdotal prayer 
(chapter xvii.) are full of expressions 
that are certainly authentic, both as to 
their meaning and as to their very form. 
Though we have only their echo, it is a 
singularly faithful echo, notwithstanding 
that all these chapters are Johannified, if 
we may use the expression. As Clement 
of Alexandria has said, " The first evange- 
lists gave us the letter of the story, St. 
John expressed its spirit. " To say even 
this is not to say enough ; here and there 
in the farewell discourse of chapters xiv., 
xv., xvi. we find the very letter itself. 
The prediction of the coming of the Holy 
Spirit, that of persecutions to come, the 
counsel as to the conduct they were to fol- 
low when he should be no longer there, 
are very certainly the words of Jesus. We 
must not only accept the general spirit of 
this discourse, but a great number of its 
utterances; for example, these: "Love 
one another, as I have loved you;" "A 
new commandment give I unto you, that 
ye love one another;" "I call you not 
servants, but I call you friends ; " and 



104 THE DEATH AND 

many other similar expressions which tra- 
dition did not invent, any more than it 
invented the incident of Jesus washing 
the apostles' feet. If not on that even- 
ing, at least on one of these last days, he 
repeated a saying that he had already 
uttered: "Whosoever will save his life 
shall lose it, and he that will lose his life 
shall save it." This aphorism is certainly 
by Jesus, and when he uttered it anew, 
before his suffering, he was thinking of 
himself as well as of his disciples. It is 
not sufficiently recognized that Jesus must 
first have made application to himself of 
most of his precepts. They came out of 
the depths of his own personal experience ; 
he had lived them : and he gave them to 
his disciples only after having personally 
tested their truth, and found their applica- 
tion in his own life. 1 

1 With regard to the Johannean form in which the 
Fourth Gospel clothes the words of Jesus, let us con- 
sider how the author of this book wrote it. He desires 
to make a faithful, vivid, authentic portrait of Jesus; 
and to this end he composes, putting into the lips of 
Jesus words which he did not actually speak, but which 
he might have spoken ; and he makes him do things 
which he did not always actually do, but which he might 
have done, and which are therefore in the writer's eyes 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 105 

What else was he thinking ? One utter- 
ance has been preserved to us which seems 
to show his thoughts with regard to the 
future : " After I am risen again I will go 

as if he had done them. He desires to give an idea of 
what was said and done, — or of what might have been 
said and done, for the two were one in his mind, — 
by " the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, full of 
grace and truth " (John i. 14) ; and he shows him speak- 
ing and working. Thus it is with the farewell discourse 
in the upper chamber. The sublime unknown who was 
the friend of St. John, and who received from him most 
of the historic details of his narrative, the mystic of the 
school of Ephesus, who wrote the Fourth Gospel, desires 
to show us Jesus at that solemn hour. He enters, there- 
fore, into his frame of mind, says only what Jesus might 
have said, and he is certain to have given us a very faith- 
ful and entirely authentic picture of the state of his soul. 
Every word that he puts into his lips expresses what 
Jesus thought, felt, and experienced at this solemn hour. 
It is to this end that he makes him utter these words 
to himself. In our day we go to work in another way. 
When we write a biography, we write it as objectively as 
possible, and when we publish the words of a man who 
is no more, we add nothing to those which he left behind ; 
we respect the incomplete and even incorrect phrases 
which remain to us from him, and are scrupulous not 
to modify them in any manner whatever. To attribute 
to him words or acts which were not his would be to 
produce a work in the highest degree apocryphal. The 
writer of the Eourth Gospel had an entirely different 
notion of what a biography ought to be. He gave 
another sense than ours to the words historical and 
authentic: that is all. 



106 THE DEATH AND 

before you into Galilee." x We have already 
alluded to this. What does it mean ? Shall 
we see in it a plan already formed to leave 
his apostles, to change his plans, to vanish 
for a time from view? Perhaps; in any 
case, is it not permitted to conclude from 
these words that shortly before his death, 
but not knowing death to be so near, Jesus 
had resolved to escape from his enemies 
by hiding himself for a time, retiring into 
some solitude unknown to any one, even 
to the Twelve? When telling them in 
veiled language of this approaching with- 
drawal of himself, he would also appoint a 
meeting for a later time, in Galilee, and 
even "upon a mountain" in Galilee, a 
mountain which he would expressly desig- 
nate, 2 although in the words spoken in 
the upper room nothing was said about a 
mountain. Then, after a temporary re- 
treat, when the passions now raging about 
him should have been calmed, they would 
meet, and together resume their common 
work. 3 

1 Matt. xxvi. 32 ; Mark xiv. 28. 

2 Matt, xxviii. 16. 

8 Matt. xxvi. 30-32 ; Mark xiv. 26-28, xvi. 7 ; Matt, 
xxviii. 7, 10, 16. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 107 

It seems to us in fact probable, if not 
certain, that in the words, "I will go 
before yon into Galilee," we have a frag- 
ment of an utterance of Jesus appointing 
a place of meeting with the apostles after 
a temporary separation rendered necessary 
by the plots of his adversaries. In any 
case, he gave them a positive appointment ; 
and the apostles, recalling these words to 
mind at a later day, very naturally took 
them for a prophecy of his resurrection. 



108 THE DEATH AND 



CHAPTER VII 

THE LOKD'S SUPPER 

T^HERE was for the disciples one mo- 
ment least of all to be forgotten in this 
never-to-be-forgotten evening, — that of the 
institution of the Eucharist. 

Jesus had long thought of such a thing. 1 
It might even be asked whether he did 
not earlier institute this sacred rite, and 
whether the apostles, by a very natural 
optical illusion, which has already been 
observed, did not at a later time place it 
in this last evening. But the testimony 
of St. Paul is explicit. Jesus instituted 
the Eucharist "on the night in which he 
was betrayed." 2 

Baptism was not so much a new insti- 
tution as a ceremony, which he permitted 
to remain after modifying it, for baptism 

1 See " Jesus Christ During his Ministry," pp. 171 ff. 
and pp. 215, 216. 

2 1 Cor. xi. 23. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 109 

was practised before Jesus Christ came. 1 
The Lord's Supper was really a new 
creation. 2 

By what steps did Jesus come to the 
institution of this ceremony, and to its 
institution on that very day? This is 
what we have now to ask. 

The work of regenerating his people, 
the work of preparing by repentance and 
poverty of spirit for the coming of the 
kingdom, had failed. The tears which 
Jesus shed the day of his entrance into 
Jerusalem had been wrung from him by 
the contrast between what was and what 
might have been. What was, — the 
acclamations of children, of friends of 
Galilean peasants, the mass of the people 
indifferent, the Pharisees more and more 
hostile. 

The kingdom would come by and by; 
he would inaugurate it on his return ; but 
now, just now, what ought he to do ? He 
must always be preparing for the coming 
of the kingdom — that Avas his mission, 

1 See, on baptism and its origin, " Palestine in the 
Time of Jesus Christ," pp. 197, 377. 

2 It, however, may also be connected by filiation with 
the meals of the Pharisaic confraternities, as we shall 
presently show. 



110 THE DEATH AND 

and he had never for an instant doubted 
his mission; but would not his people 
always reject him, whatever he might do ? 
It seemed so to him; from this time he 
became more and more convinced that it 
was so. 

On the other hand, Judaism appeared to 
be certainly passing away; the time-worn 
routine, the debased priesthood, the Law 
changed into casuistry, the mechanical 
ritualism of formalistic institutions, — all 
these must pass away. Jesus continually 
felt himself to be more and more outside 
of these things and entirely above them; 
the old Covenant was subverted; a new 
Covenant was needed between God and 
men. 

He knew the passage in Jeremiah about 
the new Covenant. 1 It was for him to 
fulfil this prophecy, for him to found this 
new covenant. 

Up to this time his originality had con- 
sisted in teaching that the kingdom of 
God is prepared for by a change in men's 
hearts, and not by waiting, as did the 
Jews, for a sudden catastrophe, giving 
the kingdom to the elect people as of 

1 Jer. xxxi. 31 ff. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 111 

right; now, like Jeremiah, he declared 
— and it is always the same order of 
ideas — that the covenant would be in 
the heart, that the new law would be 
written in the hearts of men. 

But he had believed that he could bring 
about this covenant by his preaching, 
and now he saw that the change of men's 
hearts must be sealed with his blood. 

If he had lost his Jewish faith, he still 
did not condemn the religion of his people 
in the sense of deeming it to be bad in 
itself. It was the starting-point of the 
new law, the origin of what he was about 
to found, the preparation for it. 

He must do this foundation work at 
once, for his death was now certain. He 
hoped indeed that arrest might be avoided ; 
and yet — could they not find him wher- 
ever he might be? And what would 
become of his disciples? Would not they 
be discouraged? He must be put to 
death. This "must," which during the 
last few months he had so often repeated, 
rose up anew before him. "Father, thy 
will, not mine." Ah, in this filial sub- 
mission he never wavered, and these 
words, which would shortly sum up his 



112 THE DEATH AND 

last prayer, were always in his heart; for 
they were the inspiring principle of his 
whole life, they had been his law from 
the first, from the days of his pious child- 
hood in Nazareth. 

As to his future triumph and that of his 
work, he still believed in it; he was as 
sure of it now as in his time of success in 
Galilee ; he had predicted triumph, and he 
still predicted it. But since he must first 
die, and since it was necessary that his 
disciples should remain bound to him, 
that his disciples' faith in him should 
abide, or if it must pass through an eclipse, 
that it should again become what it had 
been, he instituted the Holy Communion. 
It would be a ceremony that they could 
observe during his absence ; when he was 
no longer with them it would recall his 
presence and take the place of it. 

The pictorial language which he had 
so often used was to be used yet once 
again, and this time it would be a parable 
in action. When he should be no longer 
there it was needful that his own should 
live with him in thought, that his example, 
especially the example of his sacrifice, 
should be daily before their eyes ; and he 



RESURRECTION OE JESUS CHRIST 1 ] 3 

perceived that meal-time was the best time 
for them to commemorate bis presence. 

In fact, when they should conic together 
for the common meal and find their 
.Master's place empty, would not their 
meeting be bitterly sad? Would not (he 
memory of the meals of former days, of 
those joyful hours of confidence, come 
back as a heavy weight upon their hearts? 
Well, at such times they must d<» as if 

he were still theiv: better still he Would 

Ik; there, present in their midst, for they 
would have assembled in his name; 1 he 
would not Leave them orphans, he would 
conic to them, 8 and their sorrow should be 
changed into j<>y. 3 

During these three years, the happiest 

hour of the day far Master and disciples 

had been that <>t' the common meal ; they 

must keep it up: it must be their hour of 

intimate fellowship; and ever] day, when 

they took this meal, they must eat the 
bread and drink the wine in memory of 
him. 

Vet more: the bread, necessarily broken 
before being eaten, the wine, necessarily 

1 Matt. wiii. 20 £ .John xiv. 18. 

3 John x\ i. -20. 



114 THE DEATH AND 

poured out before being drunk, would 
remind them of their Master's sacrifice; 
his death, his shed blood. 

And finally, when they ate the one and 
drank the other, they should be fed by 
him ; they should commune with him ; his 
person would be present to them, his 
example would be living before their eyes. 
Far from being saddened by this sacred 
meal, they would draw from it an immense 
spiritual power. 

They were to renew this act every time 
they took a meal in common, and keep it 
up until their Master came again; for he 
would come again. 

" I will come again ! I will come again ! " 
Who shall say what these words, repeated 
by Jesus from the depth of his soul, with 
unwavering conviction, brought him of joy 
and strength in the last dark hours ! 

Thus, then, Jesus told his disciples that 
while waiting for the kingdom of God in 
which they should drink new wine, and 
during the period that separated his death 
from his coming again, they were to recall 
his person to mind every time they took a 
meal together, were to put themselves in 
spiritual communion with him by think- 



JESUS CHRIST |16 

ing of his retain and of that blessed day, 
when forever reunited they should enjoy 
tin; eternal banquet in the kingdom of the 
Father. 

Thus understood, the words of institu- 
tion seem to us very clear. "This is my 

body, this is my U 1 : " l " The blood of 

the uew Covenant, which is shed for many 
for the remission of sin. 1 

To 'lif Hebrew Aw blood was ti 
life. To pour oul one 1 I was bo die, 

to irivo one's lit'.*. The expression flesh 

and blood (bad I • k, aap!j 

teal airily or atfi i and bio i 

was a locution frequently employed by the 
rabbins for the entire person, (he w\ 
Living man. The Buehari then in 

the thought ins the sensible image 

of the gift of his entire being; but he 
aever considered his .hath as a Levitioal 
rifioe. Hf simply said: "I give my- 

1 Without v.-rh in Aran 
" Thii. my bodj ; thi<, tii \ Mi 

■ Ren m fchew (\wi. 88) without 

which of the f.»ur feexti M ' r, Mirk. Lake, ami 
-', fnr all f»-ur iliff« i pldbll ID il 

practicallj Insoluble. 

I wi l- Gel i it ; i Oor. xv. BOj Befc 

ii. I I. etc 



116 THE DEATH AND 

self, body and soul ; I sacrifice myself, and 
this sacrifice creates a new Covenant, a 
new relation between God and man. By 
this Covenant sins shall be remitted, par- 
doned, effaced." The old Covenant was 
sealed with blood; the new one should be 
also; and it was his own blood, his, Jesus' 
blood, which should seal it with this final 
and sacred seal. 

His blood was shed for the remission of 
sins ; that is to say, God would remit the 
sins of those who were united by faith 
with their crucified Saviour. 

The institution of the Eucharist is there- 
fore explained by the desire of Jesus to 
perpetuate his memory and to remain alive 
in the thoughts of his own ; and if he chose 
this form of repast, it was not simply be- 
cause of the touching symbolism of the 
bread broken and eaten, of the wine poured 
out and drunk by all of them, but also 
because before all other times he preferred 
the precious moment of the common meal. 

The Jewish Passover had always been 
the type of their family dinners, because 
with it was mingled a religious and patri- 
otic souvenir. In fact, the simple every- 
day meal was always for an Israelite a 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 117 

beloved time. The Jews cared greatly for 
these family gatherings, and the Pharisees 
used to form spiritual fraternities, with a 
common meal and conversations on religious 
subjects. 1 

Jesus and the Twelve had formed one 
of these associations, perfectly united and 
perfectly happy. At a later time, when 
the apostles desired to recall the memory 
of their Master as they had known and 
Loved him, they would not first think of 
him as healing the sick or preaching on 
the mountain. It was not the picture of 
Jesus casting out demons and inspiring 
the multitudes with enthusiasm that would 
first present itself to their eyes; they 
would see hi in 1 (leaking the bread at the 
evening meal, in the upper chamber, when 
the doors were closed; lie had so loved 
these times of privacy with his own! 
Their association, their confraternity, 
whether Pharisaic or Essenian, had l)een 
BO happy, so sweet, so united! The even- 
ing meal had been for Jesus the time above 
all others for intimate communion, the 
time of rest, far from the thronging crowd, 
the time for self revelations and confi- 

1 See "Jesus Christ During his Ministry," p. 172. 



118 THE DEATH AND 

dences; it was then that he would speak 
most unreservedly, and that relations of 
most entire confidence were established 
between him and his disciples. 

More than this, the common meal, taken 
in accordance with Pharisaic custom, 
always had a sacred character. Jesus 
always began it by giving thanks, as has 
become the excellent custom of Christian 
households; thanking God for the food 
before partaking of the meal. The Jews, 
indeed, always did so, and even thanked 
God for each new dish placed upon the 
table; but it was especially at the begin- 
ning that they gave thanks, and again at 
the moment when the bread was broken, 
the great round flat cakes which had to be 
broken into pieces and distributed. It 
was the habit of Jesus to break the bread 
at the time when he said grace, at the 
same time making a gesture of adoration 
peculiar to himself, which no one made 
but he. "Oh, those meal-times with 
Jesus!" the apostles would say to one 
another in later days; "oh, the moment 
of the breaking of bread when he was with 
us! " They would remind one another 
how happy they had been, and how happy 



Si SURR1 ' rms 1 L9 

he Coo had been at th led I u 

He used to look faro i them; 

desired tfaem " with : " ' 

and when afterward they Baw him, retorned 
t'lMin tfae dead, 1 it i at meal-t 

that he appeared in tl i and it 

peeially in I king of 1>; 

ili.it they recognized him. 
Tbia is why on that Thursday night, tho 

night in which he " '1, knuv. 

tint, he wa '1 from 

his own. .i ina definitive wa 
orated the solemn mom king 

of bread. II'- desired thai the apoel 
ahonld --till come together, -till 1»'. 

bread, -till drink in tn 

.it the paschal honld do it all for 

him, in memory of him, until hia coming 

in ; lor hi- absence i be onlj 

absence, a b tn. And when they 

should reproduce the scene of the upper 
chamber, they would be drawing near to 
him; he would ]>ut himself into relations 

with them, and thus they would 1. 

alive hi- memoi 

1 Lnha x\ii i.v 

WC shall r.turn U) ring t he 

n'tiini of Jen 



120 THE DEATH AND 

More than this, he said that the memory, 
not of his life only but also of his death, 
was to be kept alive by this sacred cere- 
mony. The bread was his body, broken, 
put to death. The wine was his blood, 
poured out for the remission of sins. 
Since he was to drink no more of this fruit 
of the vine with his own, until the king- 
dom should have come; since they were 
to have no more of these common meals, 
with the broken bread and the cup passed 
from lip to lip ; since he was to die, — he 
desired that his death, which was to be 
so important, should be connected, by a 
sacred rite, with the celebration of the 
meals which the apostles would take after 
he was gone. 

Besides, he was to come back again. 
Very well, until his return let the little 
spiritual family not be scattered; let his 
friends keep up the common evening meal ; 
and every time that they ate the bread and 
drank of the cup, they would be proclaim- 
ing his death; they Avould be preaching 
him ; they would be telling the world that 
his death had not been a defeat but a 
victory, an act willed by God, an act of 
redemption. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CUR1ST 1 2 1 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE Ai:i:i>T 

*T*HK evening was rearing away; if was 

time to L, r <>: the bom had come 
repairing to their oighl refuge in G 
Chamena, 1 at the foot of the Mount of 
Olives. 

They therefore went forth 
the Last psalms and passed along the dark 
and silent streets. Ln each one of those 
closed houses they were finishing the c 
bration of the paschal meal, and the last 
chords of tlif hymns floated out from tl 
homes as they passed before them; per- 
haps they also heard joyous bi 
laughter, for this feast of the Passover 

was always a wry happy time. 

They reached the open country; tin- 
moon was full- and lighted up the slopes 

1 Bee above, p. 19, note I. 

■ That it. was moonlight that night ia certain I 
the Jewi celebrated the raexmii tho I5tb Ninn, that 



122 THE DEATH AND 

of the Mount of Olives. Its rays fell 
white on the tombs and on the rocks, 
leaving the rest in shadow. They met no 
one on the road; they heard no sound 
except of their own footsteps ; below them 
was the deep valley; before them, on the 
opposite slope of the hill, lay the quiet 
place where Jesus believed that he might 
pass the night without fear. From afar 
its olive-trees showed like dark blots, and 
the whole scene was enwrapped in the wan 
radiance which lighted up the mountain. 

They went down into the valley, crossed 
the Kedron by a little bridge, the precise 
place of which is known, climbed the 
other slope by a footpath, and one by one 
entered the garden. 

No one would look for them there under 
the trees. On the other side of the valley, 
directly opposite, uprose the high walls 
of Jerusalem, from which they were sepa- 
rated only by the ravine. The gigantic 
Temple overtopped these lordly walls with 

is, fifteen days after the new moon, which always 
marked the beginning of the month. We at the pres- 
ent time follow a like custom ; the Christian festival of 
Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday that follows the 
first full moon after the vernal equinox. It thence re- 
sults that the moon is always full during Holy Week. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 123 

their one hundred and twenty feet of ele- 
vation, and their enormous foundation 
stones, which Still rest ID their places even 

to this day. Around them was the rocky 

hill all Hooded with the white light from 
the skies, the white radiance bringing out 
the huge hlack shadows of the old olive- 
trees. 

The apostles disposed themselves for the 
night, and fell asleep wrapped in their 
mantles. But Jesus desired to watch; he 
begged Peter, James, and John to come 

and pray with him, and all four went 

farther under tin' shadow of tin- r 

Perhaps Jesus proposed to pass the 
whole night in Gethsemane; in any i 
he intended to begin it by praying, per- 
haps for an hour. He probably deemed it 

imprudent to spend this night in a house, 
even in that of his friends of BethphagC 

or Bethany, and preferred to remain in the 

Open air. He had often done this, in his 
youth in Nazareth, and during his ministry 

in Galilee. 1 

But this night he was not entirely at 

ease, for though his retreat was known 
only to the Twelve, one of them, Judas, 

1 Luke vi. 12 ; John vi. 15 f. 



124 THE DEATH AND 

the very one whom he suspected, was not 
with them. He had gone out abruptly in 
the midst of the Passover feast. 

To the suspicions caused by the conduct 
of Jesus were joined presentiments; he 
felt that misfortune was coming, and soon 
an immense distress took possession of his 
entire being. It was for this reason that 
he had begged his three most intimate 
disciples to watch with him, near him; in 
general he used to go alone to pray, but 
this night he was overwhelmed with sad- 
ness, he dreaded solitude. 

Yet he was not spared solitude. The 
three apostles who had gone with him 
soon slumbered like the others, being over- 
come with sleep. Then Jesus went a few 
steps farther; and kneeling down, his face 
to the earth, he was alone. 

Oh those nights of solitude and medita- 
tion, how he had loved them ! But here, 
for the first time, solitude was painful ; he 
was "sorrowful even unto death." 

And why? What was it that over- 
whelmed him? Had he not often passed 
such nights ? — in Nazareth, before his 
ministry, and during the last three years, 
on the hills that surround the Lake of 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIBT 125 

Tiberias. All around him would be the 
quiet of an infinite adoration; from the 
depths of the valley a silent hymn would 
arise toward him, and toward the starry 
sky. Was it Dot the same OH this night? 
Yes; externally this night resembled those 
of long ago; but how did it differ from them 
by the thoughts that oppressed his soul! 

What were these thoughts? Many 
Strange Conjectures have been made; 
Jesus has been represented as at thlS hour 

regretting Galilee, Nazareth, and the des- 
tiny that bad impelled him to take up 
his mission. It has been said thai perhaps 
lie was seized with a Longing for home, for 

the spot where he was bom, the town 
where he had lived bo Long; that he 
recalled his youth, the shop of Joseph, his 
happy childhood; that he saw again the 
familiar mountains around his village and 

heard in memory the yodel of the shep- 
herds, who at this very hour were calling 

their Hocks to the quiet pasturages of the 

plain of Ksdraelon: and that comparing 

these sweet memories with his fruitless 

efforts, his broken hopes, and the hatred 

of his enemies, he was asking himself. 

"Was 1 not mistaken? 91 



126 THE DEATH AND 

What an error! and how deeply this is 
to misunderstand Jesus ! They who thus 
think, they who explain the agony of 
Gethsemane by a selfish return of Jesus 
upon himself, are to be found, it is need- 
less to say, only among unbelievers. And 
not a word in the Gospels confirms their 
purely gratuitous assumption. 

But among Christians another explana- 
tion, if not like this, at least very near to 
it, has been proposed. It has been said 
that in Gethsemane Jesus was passing 
through a crisis of doubt as to his mission. 

They who give this explanation of the 
anguish of Jesus in the Garden of Olives 
are to be found among the most believing 
and most pious of his worshippers. They 
do not indeed think that Jesus at this 
moment regretted having obeyed his 
Father, but they think that the hour 
spent in Gethsemane was an hour of 
moral hesitation and transient weakness. 

We cannot admit it; at no moment was 
there any weakness, any doubt, any hesi- 
tation in the soul of Jesus, save, perhaps, 
when he uttered the cry, "My God! my 
God! why hast thou forsaken me?" But 
this cry was uttered only on the cross, it 
was not spoken in the olive garden. 



RESURRECT ION OF JEBUB CHRIST 127 

1 1 is unalterable union with his Father 
gave to 1 1 i in, as well in this solemn boor in 
Gethsemane as at any other time, the cer- 
tainty that In* was doing the will of God 
and that be had nothing to regret. 

Why not take the Gospel story in all its 
simplicity? Why seek to add to the text, 
and to find in it what is not there? We 

have already had occasion, in our first 
volume, 1 to explain this suhlinic scene. 

[n the Garden of Olives Jesus asked bis 
Father that bis work might be accom- 
plished without the violent death that he 

saw approaching, without its defeat, its 
ignominy, its public execution. This was 

the cuj) that appalled him! This was 
why he was seized with dread, and an 

immense anguish took j in of him! 

Once again he had the clear intuition 
of approaching death ; the appalling vision 

of an imminent, fatal end; a criminal's 

death, a public execution! My work: yes, 
my entire work, my mission without doubt 

or shrinking or weakening; obedience, and 
obedience to the end. Bui is it not p< 

hie that obedience may not lead by way of 

such a death? 

1 See "Jesus Christ Before his Ministry," p. 168. 



128 THE DEATH AND 

It rose up hideous before him; for a 
long time it had been drawing near, slow, 
implacable, always more certain. At first 
doubtful, it had become less and less so, 
and at this very moment perhaps it was 
being determined upon. 

To accomplish his work, to be faithful 
to his mission, this had always been his 
will; and this he still willed, without a 
shadow of hesitation. His faith in his 
work, in his Father and in himself, had 
never wavered, and it did not waver now. 

"Father, if it be possible let this cup 
pass from me ; nevertheless, not as I will, 
but as thou wilt! " He accepts God's 
will, yet only to offer this prayer a second 
time. He accepts it again ; yet still to pray 
again, pleading the third time his wish 
against his Father's will, and beseeching 
him to bend his will if that were in any 
wise possible. His anguish is so great 
that he utters loud cries, 1 calling his 
Father "Abba! Abba!" The tragic tone 
in which he pronounced these two sylla- 
bles struck the ears of the three apostles 
heavy with sleep, yet still capable of 
hearing. 

i Heb. v. 7. 



RESURRECTION OF JEBUB CHRIST 129 

Pascal, with his intuitive genius, has 
given the true meaning of the B06H6 in 

Grethsemane ; it is nil summed up in his 
line observation : — 

"Jesus prayed in uncertainty of the 
Father's will, and in dread of death; but 
having learned that will, In- went forward 
and offered himself to death." ] 

This says it all; Jesus did dread death; 
Jesus was uncertain as to tin- Father's will, 

— lie, whose lite ;ilid joy Were in that will. 

whose meat it was t" do it; and hi-, uncer- 
tainty explains his 

Jesus, then, was hoping with an invin- 
cible hope that death might I led. 

Rising from his prayer, he drew near 
to his disciples and perceived that they 
were asleep. He had already twice re- 
turned to them, begging them to watch 

with him. Now he said t<> I ' 
thou? Couldsl thou not watch with me 
one hour? The .spirit indeed is willing 
but the flesh is weak." JcSUS WftB speak- 
ing of himself as well as of his discip] 
He had said for the lasl time, "Not as I 
will, but as Thou wilt." Now he was the 

1 l'a.M-.-ii. M Fenifet Le Mjatfen da Jeans," Hauet's 

edition, p. 898. 

9 



130 THE DEATH AND 

victor; these words are the secret of his 
life; it was his meat to do and to accept 
the will of the Father; to give himself up 
entirely to him who alone knows what he 
is doing. 

He, Jesus, did not understand, but he 
did know with an absolute certainty that 
he had been living in the truth all his 
life, and that he still was doing so; he 
had the approbation of his conscience, 
was entirely at peace with it, that is, with 
his Father; and therefore, when all were 
cursing and crushing him, he could say, 
"Father, thy will! " He wept; but there 
was neither bitterness in his tears nor 
despair in his heart; submission to God's 
will had given him back hope and peace. 
The peace of God, that infinite peace that 
is born of unmurmuring obedience, stole 
upon his soul and filled it utterly. 

Suddenly the silence of the night, 
which nothing had disturbed, was inter- 
rupted by a slight noise which grew ever 
louder. It was the hurried footsteps of 
men running down the declivity of the 
hill. Lanterns, torches, lights were com- 
ing; the clinking of arms was heard. In 
a moment Jesus understood it all. " It is 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 131 

for me; I have l>een betrayed; they are 
coming to arrest me; it is all over." 

What was happening was the work of 
Judas. We may thus picture to ourselves 
what this man had l>een doing. He knew 
that the Sanhedrin were reluctant to move 
during the Feast, and were waiting for 
the days of unleavened bread to be ended; 
but he had undertaken to do whati 
was besl for their interests. He was in 
the pay of tin- Sanhedrin, and Judas knew 
thai they expected their money's worth. 
Thursday night seemed to him a Favorable 
time; he knew where to find Jesus. By 
acting at night they would avoid a popu- 
lar uprising. Therefore on going out 
from the upper chamber he went to the 
Sanhedrin with words to this effect: "If 
you choose, we can at once bring this 
matter to a close, [can gi e him up to 

you this night, and in twenty-four hours 
you can have him executed; thus you will 
avoid tumult." 

I lis plans were well conceived. To B 

Jesus in the upper room would have been 
to provoke an uprising <>t' the whole 

quarter. Besides, Judas did not know in 

advance where .Je^Us would e;it the PaSS- 



132 THE DEATH AND 

over ; his Master had taken all precautions, 
admitting only two disciples into the secret. 
Had Jesus mentioned in the course of the 
evening that he was going to pass the 
night in Gethsemane? It is possible; in 
any case Judas was confident of this, and 
he led the officers there without hesitation. 

If he had heard Jesus speak of a meet- 
ing with his disciples in Galilee, he may 
have feared that Jesus might thus escape 
him ; and it is not impossible that he had 
also said to the Sanhedrin, " I will not be 
responsible if you wait until after the 
Feast; he will have quitted Jerusalem; 
the surest way is to proceed this very 
minute." The Sanhedrin yielded to his 
arguments and gave him the requisite 
number of men ; he led them away, walk- 
ing at their head. 1 

The order of arrest had been given by 
Caiaphas, carrying out the decisions of 
that section of the Sanhedrin which was 
charged with juridical affairs. How was 
the company composed which Judas led? 
According to Matthew and Mark, of 
Levites of the inferior orders of the clergy, 

1 Matt. xxvi. 47 ; Mark xiv. 43 ; Luke xxii. 47 ; John 
xviii. 3; Acts i. 16. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 133 

agents of the Sanhedrin, a sort of police 
under the bigh priest's orders. It Lb 
hardly probable that among them were, 
as Luki temple officers and priests 

properly so called: and there certainly 
were do Roman soldiers in the party, as 
the Fourth Gospel states, so Ear as 

to saj thai the whole garrison of Jerusalem 
was there with the Tribune in person. 
This Is certainly an error; the Etonian 
troops could have been there only by order 
of Pilate, and for that it would have been 
necessary to consult Pilate. But the 
Roman Procurator heard of the proceed- 
ings against Jesus only on the morrow, 
when the Jews brought Jesus before him 
and insisted that he should crucify him. 
It was the Sanhedrin alone who arrested 
Jesus, and Pilate' 8 troops were not at the 
Sanhedrin's orders. The unknown writer 
of the Fourth Gospel introduces here a 
detail which he believed to be correct, hut 

which shows that he was uiilamiliar with 
the manners and customs of Palestine at 
that time. 

There were in the party therefore only 
the policemen who had charge of the 
Temple and were at the orders of the 



134 THE DEATH AND 

priesthood, a few agents of Caiaphas, and 
even certain slaves, who had only staves 
by way of weapons. 

The apostles awaked in terror. Jesus 
said to them, not without irony, " Sleep on 
now and take your rest; the hour is at 
hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into 
the hand of sinners." 

At that moment a man approached, — 
he who was walking at the head of the 
company. He hastened toward Jesus and 
gave him a kiss. Jesus, in extreme sur- 
prise, recognized Judas, and addressed 
him by the familiar and affectionate term 
which the word "friend" only very im- 
perfectly renders. 1 The appellation, the 
surprised question, "Wherefore hast thou 
come?" show clearly that Jesus became 
certain of Judas 's treachery only at this 
moment. Up to this time no doubt he 
had not been able to bring himself to admit 
such black perfidy. 

The kiss had been a signal; in a few 
moments Jesus was surrounded, seized, 
bound; that is to say, his hands were 
tightly bound and his feet so tied as to 
permit him to walk but not to run, and in 

1 Matt. xxvi. 50 ; iraTpe, companion, comrade. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 135 

consequence to take away from him all 
possibility of escape. 

As to the apostles, they at once fled in 
dismay. Everything was going to pieces 
about them, — their faith, their hope, their 
trust in Jesus ; all that they had believed 
was disappearing. He whom they had 
called the Christ was only a man like any 
other, and self-deceived. Their despair 
may easily be understood. 

Peter alone remained. He did more: 
he remembered his promise and proposed 
to keep it. He had brought with him one 
of the two swords which they had showed 
to Jesus in the upper room. Suddenly 
he rushed forward, sword in hand, and 
tried to deliver a heavy blow on the head 
of the foremost of the aggressors; the 
sword glanced aside and cut off the un- 
lucky man's ear. It was Malek, one of 
the slaves of Caiaphas. 1 Jesus bade Peter 
put up his sword into its sheath. 

No one, however, struck back, and no 
attempt was made to arrest Peter ; singu- 
larly enough, since he had committed an 
act which fell under the ban of the law. 
Probably the order had been given to 

1 Malchos in Greek ; John xviii. 10. 



136 THE DEATH AND 

arrest Jesus alone and to let his disciples 
go, whatever might be their attitude, to 
avoid everything which might provoke a 
struggle, and in consequence a tumult. 
The purpose of the Sanhedrin was to dis- 
pose of Jesus as promptly as possible, but 
in a lawful way; the rest mattered little. 
Besides, the wounded man was only a 
slave; according to the custom of the 
time Peter's act was therefore of no 
consequence. 

Thus Peter remained. He had the 
courage not to run away even when he 
had reason to dread lawful reprisals; he 
loved his Master too sincerely to abandon 
him. 

Jesus, entirely submissive to the Father's 
will, was further than ever from saying, 
" I have been mistaken ; " he felt assured 
that since the Father willed that he should 
die, his death was a true part of his work, 
and that his blood would be shed for the 
remission of the sins of those who believed 
on him. He permitted himself to be led 
away, simply protesting against the coward- 
ice and brutality of this clandestine arrest. 
"You arrest me by night, in an ambus- 
cade, as if I were a robber, and every day 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 137 

I have been with you in the Temple; you 
ought to have arrested me there." 1 

It has been asked how this scene of the 
arrest, and that which preceded it, the 
agony of Jesus in prayer under the olive- 
trees of the garden, could have been nar- 
rated with so much precision since the 
apostles were either asleep or absent. A 
slight incident recorded by Mark perhaps 
gives the key of this enigma. 9 lb- - 
that a very young man. a boy, \v;is in bed, 

perhaps in the country house adjoining the 
Garden of ( Hives, perhaps in the ..il pi 
itself, keeping guard, no doubt, over the 
tools and the oil-making apparatus. Ib- 
was Bleeping profoundly when 
awakened by a noise. He arose in terror 
and ran out, having only his night gar- 
ment around him. The policemen sur- 
rounded and would have seized him, but 

he fled, Leaving in their hands the single 
garment with which he was covered. No 

doubt it was he who witnessed the scene 
of Gethsemane, and all that preceded and 
followed it; it was he who heard Jesus 
exclaim three times, "Father, not as I 

1 Matt. xxvi. 55 ; Mark xiv. 48; Luke xxii. 52. 

2 Mark xiv. 51, 52. 



138 THE DEATH AND 

will but as thou wilt; " and who at a later 
time could affirm that he had uttered cries 
and shed tears, as one of the oldest tradi- 
tions relates. 1 

We are inclined to believe that this 
young man was Mark himself; it may 
with no improbability be so supposed. 
This John Mark had a mother in Jerusa- 
lem. She and her son were no doubt 
among the disciples unknown to us who 
lived in the city, and who seem to have 
formed a pretty numerous group. 

In any case, it is certain that the Gat- 
Chemena property belonged to a friend of 
Jesus. It is only a conjecture, but a per- 
fectly allowable one, that it belonged to 
the father of John Mark, and that the 
young man in charge of the oil press who 
witnessed all that occurred was his son, 
and that he himself at a later time told 
the story when he wrote his Gospel. 

We have said that Jesus was tried and 
condemned according to law. The apos- 
tles — for example, St. Paul, who was 
thoroughly acquainted with the legislation 
of his time — nowhere say that the death 
of Jesus was not in conformity to law. 

i Heb. v. 7. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 139 

Everything was in fact done according to 
legal forms, except with regard to one 
point, — the precipitancy with which the 
accused was condemned to death, without 
waiting for a second vote of the assembly 
on the morrow, as the rigor of the law 
demanded. 1 This detail excepted, the 
general procedure was correct and in con- 
formity with the law of that time. Jesus 
was a mesith, a seducer; 2 it was as such 
that he was arrested, and the intention 
was to put him to death on that ground. 
The common procedure so willed, and his 
judges conformed themselves to it. 

The procedure, as the, Mishna describes 
it, began with a trap, pure and simple. 
Two eye-witnesses were necessary; the 
law required it, and to meet this require- 
ment it was the custom to secrete two 
people in some lurking-place, to entice 
the suspected person as near them as pos- 
sible, and so arrange matters that he should 
be heard and seen. The Talmud recom- 
mends that two candles be lighted near the 
accused, in order that the witnesses may 
be literal eye-witnesses. If the attempt 

1 Mishna, Sanhedrin, iv. 6, v. 1. 

2 Id. iv. 5. 



140 THE DEATH AND 

to make the suspected man repeat his 
blasphemy was successful, the witnesses 
hastened to denounce him, and he was 
condemned to die by stoning. 

We may believe the Talmuds when they 
affirm that this was the proceeding with 
Jesus. He was accused of seduction; 1 
the witnesses were hidden, we know not 
where nor how; and he was convicted of 
the crime of which he was accused. It is 
noteworthy that the account in the Tal- 
mud of the procedure followed in the 
case of seducers answers on almost every 
point to the accounts in the Gospels. 
Let us follow the trial of Jesus and we 
shall be convinced of this fact. 2 

1 Matt, xxvii. 63; John vii. 12, 47. 

2 Jerus. Talm. Sank, ii., iii., iv. ; Babyl. id. 43a, 67a ; 
Schabbath, 104, 6. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 1-41 



CHAPTER IX 

THE TRIAL 

*T^IIEY led Hie prisoner to the how 

Annas. He lived on the summit of 
the Mount of Olives, at the Khaneioth; 
that is, the Bazars, the revenue of which 
belonged to him ; l there he had his country 

house. 

This Annas was, as lias been said, a 

great personage. Notwithstanding the 

lateness df the hour (it must have been 
the middle of the night), he was awaiting 

his victim. The proximity of the place 
of arrest was very Eavorable to his pur- 
pose, and the old priest had very shrewdly 
planned it all in advance. It was certainly 
at his instigation that every detail had 
been adjusted, and perhaps it was Annas 
himself with whom Judas, on going out 

1 llovo tho Fourth Eyangelisl makes do mistake, but 
gives a very remarkable proof of the accuracy <>f his 
information. See "Jeans Christ Daring his Ministry, " 
p. xxvi, note. 



142 THE DEATH AND 

from the upper chamber, had made arrange- 
ments the evening before. 

In any case it was probably he who had 
directed everything; he who had com- 
pacted with the traitor, had sent the squad 
of police, had advised that Pilate should 
be brought to condemn Jesus to death by 
crucifixion. He knew his people, and 
how to so manage them as to avoid a 
public disturbance. The important thing 
was to carry the matter through as rapidly 
as possible ; no doubt he would have pre- 
ferred to do nothing during the Feast, but 
since the opportunity had presented itself 
he had taken advantage of it, and it 
required the greatest promptitude. 

Annas was no longer an official person- 
age, but whatever he said his son-in-law 
hastened to ratify; and besides, on this 
question there had long been perfect agree- 
ment between the two. It is easy to 
picture the scene that took place in the 
atrium of Annas 's villa. Jesus, led quietly 
into this country house about two o'clock 
in the morning, was introduced, securely 
bound, into the presence of the former 
high priest, the actors in the drama being 
made visible by the light of torches. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 143 

Annas began by questioning the accused. 
Judas no doubt had instructed him, and 
he was desirous himself to speak with 
Jesus, that he might learn how best to 
conduct the legal procedure. He there- 
fore put to him several questions concern- 
ing his teachings and his disciples. 

Jesus, who knew himself to be con- 
demned beforehand, had resolved to say 
nothing; in fact he kept silence during 
the entiie trial. He simply declared, in 
answer to Annas's first question, that he 
had nothing to explain ; that he had always 
worked publicly, never in secret, and con- 
sequently there was need only to ask 
those who had heard him. They would 
all have come to some conclusion as to 
what lie thought and desired; and since 
he had concealed nothing, he had nothing 
to confess. 

This reply was considered insolent, and 
one of the subalterns stationed near Jesus, 
desiring to show his zeal, gave him a 
blow. Jesus, whose self-possession never 
failed him for a moment, replied gently, "If 
I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil ; 
but if well, why smitest thou me?" l 

1 John xviii. 23. 



144 THE DEATH AND 

It was in the villa of Annas that the 
denial of Peter took place. 1 John and he 
had followed afar, and it appears, singu- 
larly enough, that John was acquainted 
with the servants of Annas. He had pos- 
sibly some relatives among them; he 
gained entrance for Peter, and the latter 
was daring enough to mingle with the 
servants who were warming themselves at 
a fire in the court. He would perhaps 
have passed unnoticed had he not con- 
ceived the unlucky idea of protecting 
himself from suspicion by talking. Un- 
fortunately he had the accent of a Galilean 
peasant, an accent very displeasing to Ju- 
dean ears, and one which betrayed him 
with every word he spoke. A Galilean in 
Jerusalem would reveal his origin even 

1 Matthew says that it was at the house of Caiaphas 
(xxvi. 57 ff.) ; Mark and Luke, at the high priest's house 
(evidently also Caiaphas) ; John says, at the house of 
Annas (xviii. 18 ff.), — one of the innumerable disagree- 
ments of the Evangelists in matters of detail. We pre- 
fer the evidence of John, not only because these details 
show the eye-witness, but because it is much more nat- 
ural to think of Peter as having immediately followed 
Jesus, and having entered the house on the Mount of 
Olives, than to make him go to Jerusalem, to the palace 
of Caiaphas. Where would he have been during the 
examination before Annas ? 



RESURRECTION OF JEHUS CHRIST 145 

more quickly than a southerner in Paris. 
He confused certain letters in a way that 
gave rise to the most Laughable intonations 
and even to plays upon words and puns; 
Baying one word, he seemed to Bay another. 
Twice a maid-servant, crossing the court, 
remarked upon Peter's accent; upon this 
the servants began to investigate him, 
putting questions to him. Peter hastened 
to protect himself by a falsehood ; but to 
utter it lie must speak, and the more he 
spoke, the more he showed what he •. 
He tried to change his place, but the ques- 
tioning was kept up; lie denied again. A 

third time he was called "Galilean," and 
a third time he denied ; this time he com- 
mitted perjury, denying with an oath, 
declaring that he knew nol "that man.*' 

"That man" was Jesus. At the same 
moment a cock crew, 1 and Jesus, who was 

not far away and who had heard all, 
recalled to his disciple by a glance what 
lie had said to him a few hours before. 
Peter, startled, humiliated, tortured by 
that glance, by the memory of his promises, 

1 The crowing of a cock becomes much more natural 
placed at the country house of Annas, than at Jerusa- 
lem, in the palace of Caiaphas. 
10 



146 THE DEATH AND 

his assurances, his protestations, sprang 
up, hastened out, and, throwing the corner 
of his mantle over his head, 1 went away 
sobbing. 

The interview with Annas could lead to 
nothing final, and consequently could not 
be greatly prolonged. The members of 
that section of the Sanhedrin which was 
in charge of juristic matters, having been 
aroused in the middle of the night, had 
had time to assemble at the palace of 
Caiaphas in Jerusalem. The necessity 
of haste, and of acting by night because 
of the Feast, had been made clear to 
them. 

The party therefore set out, conducting 
Jesus to the city with as little noise as 
possible; and all was ready when he was 
ushered into the hall where his judges 
awaited him. These, to the number of 
twenty-three, forming the Beth-Din (house 
of justice), were sitting in their places. 

Here again the procedure was rapid. 
As Caiaphas always acted only at his 
father-in-law's instigation, Annas con- 

1 Throwing the corner of his mantle over his head to 
hide his face ; this is the most probable translation of 
the enigmatic word, erifiaXibv. Mark xiv. 72. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 147 

tinued to manage everything with his in- 
fernal ability. The end to he attained was 
to put Jesus to death as promptly as pos- 
sible ; but still according to law, that they 
might afterward say, in case of a popular 
movement in his favor, that his condem- 
nation had been deserved, and that he had 
been tried in strict accordance with all the 
forms. It has already been remarked that 
never did a single one of the apostles 
claim that the law had been violated in 
their Master's trial. 

It must have been four or live in the 
morning when Jesus arrived at the palace 
of Caiaphas. The important thing was to 
capture the vote of the assembly, and I 
again the tact of Annas made itself felt. 
It is possible that Caiaphas also was a 

wily diplomatist. A man who was able 
to retain the high priesthood ten years in 
succession cannot have been wanting in 
cleverness. 

The trial of Jesus of Nazareth was evi- 
dently carried on according to a pre- 
arranged plan. First of all it was impor- 
tant to turn against him several priestly 
members of the Sanhedrim For this pur- 
pose use was made, not of the purification 



148 THE DEATH AND 

of the Temple, 1 but of the saying, "De- 
stroy this Temple, and in three days I will 
build it again." They began by discuss- 
ing this utterance ; its sense was not clear ; 
the witnesses who were summoned, accord- 
ing to the law, were not in accord as to its 
true signification. There were those who 
spoke of a very rapid, material rebuilding 
of the Temple, whereas Jesus had spoken 
of an invisible, spiritual Temple, of the 
true worshippers of his Father. 

Nevertheless this expression, whatever 
might be its true meaning in the eyes of 
the Sadducean priests, profoundly irritated 
them. The bare mention of a possible 
disappearance of the sanctuary by which 
they lived exasperated them. The mere 
citation of this saying therefore won them 
over to the side of the condemnation of 
Jesus, and that was all that Caiaphas asked 
of them. 

There remained those who were not 
priests, — in particular, the Pharisees. 

1 A very weighty proof that this took place at the 
opening of Jesus' ministry, and that it had been for- 
gotten (see "Jesus Christ During his Ministry/' p. 130), 
for if it had occurred on Palm Sunday they could not 
have failed to make use of it. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 149 

Many of these certainly found nothing 
subversive in the words of Jesus concern- 
ing the Temple, as they were cited by the 
witnesses. But Caiaphas desired a unani- 
mous condemnation; and to obtain the 
adhesion of the Pharisees he had prepared 
a direct question, which he had held in 
reserve, and now abruptly put to Jesus, 
"Art thou the Christ?" 1 If, in fact, 
contempt of the Temple sufficed for the 
Sadducees, it was needful, in order to 
gain the approbation of the Pharisees, 
that Jesus should be a false Messiah. 
Now Caiaphas was sure that Jesus would 
reply in the affirmative ; he had informed 
himself on this subject; perhaps it was 
Judas himself who had informed him. 

And furthermore, and this was the 
supreme craftiness of the question, if 
Jesus declared himself to be the Messiah, 
he could be handed over to Pilate as hav- 
ing aspired to royalty; and when Pilate 
once took charge of the matter they would 
be quit of it. 

At the direct and formal question of 
Caiaphas Jesus departed from his rule of 
silence and replied, "Thou hast said [the 

1 Matt. xxvi. 63; Mark xiv. 61 ; Luke xxii. 70. 



150 THE DEATH AND 

words are synonymous with yes] ; and fur- 
thermore Qn-Xrjv) I declare unto you, from 
this present time (air apri) ye shall see 
the Son of man sitting on the right hand 
of the power of God and coming in the 
clouds of heaven." 1 

Jesus was here reminding his judges of 
a passage of Scripture which they well 
knew. 2 In this passage, Bamascha, as the 
Aramaic of Jesus' time called him, the 
Son of man, draws near to Jehovah to 

1 Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62; Luke xxii. 69. The 
text of Mark, the oldest of the three, does not include 
the words air' &pri, and Luke replaces them with dtrb rod 
vvvy " from this time forward." It is truly inconceiv- 
able how the advocates of the allegorical theory, the 
exegetes who affirm that Jesus predicted merely a series 
of spiritual returns, can insist that they find a confirma- 
tion of their fantastic exegesis in these words (&tt' &pn). 
Jesus simply declares that from the moment then pres- 
ent he may be expected at any hour returning in the 
clouds of heaven. This expression shows that even at 
that terrible moment his faith in himself and in his 
words did not waver. He was expecting the kingdom ; 
it might appear at any minute, from the present time 
(cbr' &pri), from this time forward (arrb rov vvv). Upon 
the cross Jesus said, " My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me ? " Save perhaps in that second of moral 
anguish in which he uttered this cry of despair, he was 
always, as has already been said, sure of himself, sure 
of his Father, and sure of the truth. 

2 Daniel vii. 13. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 151 

receive from him dominion over the world. 
Now Jesus was convinced that he was the 
Barnascha, the ideal Son of man, the 
Messiah, the future king of the coming 
kingdom, and he was affirming his Mes- 
siahship, and in consequence his triumph, 
in a future which was to be expected from 
this time forth, at any moment. 

No doubt he had said, "Its coming is 
delayed." He had said this more than 
once these Lost weeks, and in several 
parables. But now events were hastening, 
and Jesus declared that the great day was 
very near. How natural it is! He said, 
"It delaycth its coming," when he believed 
that his work upon earth was still to last 
for a certain time. The previous evening, 
in the upper chamber, he had spoken of 
the Passover which he was celebrating as 
the last before the coming of the kingdom ; 
that is to say, he spoke of it as coming 
in the year then beginning; and now he 
speaks of it as "from this time," at any 
moment. 

No doubt Jesus intended to continue the 
sentence and give some explanation of 
what he had just said; but Caiaphas in- 
terrupted him; a tumult arose, the high 



152 THE DEATH AND 

priest making a pretence of indignation, 
declaring his horror of the blasphemy that 
they had just heard. We say, "making 
a pretence," for the Sadducees concerned 
themselves little with Messianic hopes, 
and it was necessary to simulate indigna- 
tion in order to carry the Pharisees who 
were members of the assembly. The 
death sentence was voted at once, and 
unanimously. 1 

It is pleasant to believe that Joseph of 
Arimathea and Nicodemus were not mem- 
bers of the juristic section of the Sanhe- 
drin, and that they were not of those who, 
from cowardice, were unwilling to form a 
minority. 

Jesus was condemned ; it was necessary 
now to wait for daybreak and take him 
before the Procurator. To fill in the 
time they heaped insults upon him; they 
blindfolded him, and each came in his 
turn to smite him, saying, "Come, play 
the prophet! Who smote thee? Guess! " 2 
Did the members of the Sanhedrin in 
person so abase themselves, or did they 

1 This was legal; blasphemy was punished with 
death. Lev. xxiv. 10 f. ; Deut. xiii. If. 

2 Matt. xxvi. 67, 68; Mark xiv. 65; Luke xxii. 63-65. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 153 

content themselves with permitting their 
retainers to indulge in this infamous con- 
duct ? It is impossible to know ; the texts 
are not at one on this subject. 

At early dawn they set out for the house 
of Pilate. 

But why Pilate? Annas and Caiaphas 
had only to cause Jesus to be secretly 
stoned at once, in some retired corner. It 
was easy ; they had at hand the necessary 
agents, well accustomed to such work. 
This would have had the advantage of 
keeping the populace in ignorance of his 
death, and would have been the surest 
way of avoiding an uprising. 

They had the power to do it ; and when 
they asserted that they were not allowed 
to put any one to death, 2 they lied : they 
were allowed. Why then Pilate? Be- 
cause they were too wily to take upon 
themselves the execution of Jesus. 

We have already referred to this last 
device of the Jewish authorities. The 
Galileans, Jesus' partisans, were in con- 
siderable force in the city, which further- 
more was crowded with strangers. Since 
Annas and Caiaphas had been obliged to 

1 John xviii. 31. 



154 THE DEATH AND 

act at so unfavorable a moment, they 
must at least make the best of it, and with 
little short of genius they conceived the 
idea of profiting by the presence of Pilate, 
— not simply to ratify their sentence, as 
has commonly been said, there was noth- 
ing for Pilate to ratify; but to lay the 
condemnation of Jesus upon him. Then 
if at a later time the nation reproached 
Caiaphas with having killed a patriot, he 
could reply, "I did not do it; it was the 
Procurator." And it was as the result of 
this odious and cowardly calculation that 
Jesus was crucified and not stoned. Is 
not this the invariable conduct of all relig- 
ious potentates ? — to seek a condemnation 
from the secular arm, thus sheltering 
themselves. Clerical fanaticism begs the 
civil power to cover its violences, and then 
makes it responsible for them, going even 
so far as to upbraid it for them. What 
Caiaphas did the Church often did at a 
later time, or at least it followed an 
analogous course. 

Pilate's palace was contiguous to the 
Tower of Antonia. 1 It was the former 

1 The seraglio of the Pacha of Jerusalem now occu- 
pies the precise spot. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 155 

palace of Herod. 1 The Prsetorium, the hall 
of justice, was on the ground floor. But 
this was Gentile ground, and so impure, and 
the Jews refused to enter it ; 2 to step upon 
Gentile ground was to incur uncleanne 

Pilate had another tribunal in the open 
air, 3 an elevated structure, probably a gal- 
lery with a colonnade. The pavement was 
of mosaic; this tribunal was called the 
Bima.* 

i Phil. Leg. ad Calum, § 88 ; Jo* D. B. J. 2, 14, 8. 

2 "That they might eat the Passover," says the 
Fourth Gospel (John xviii. 28). This is a mistake ; the 
Jews had already oaten the Passover the evening hefore, 
and it was not in the least necessary that it should be 
the day on which the Passover was oaten for them to 
refuse to step upon Gentile ground. Strict Jews always 
considered such an .act as incurring unelcanness, and 
that from one end of the year to the other. The author 
of the Fourth Gospel, making Jesns die on the very day 
on which the lamb was slain and eaten, attributed to 
this motive the refusal of the Jens to enter the Praeto- 
rium. This mixture of inaccuracy and precise detail, 
of data of remarkable historicity, and data not less fla- 
grantly erroneous, confirms us more and more in the 
opinion that we have in the Fourth Gospel, not the work 
of an eye-witness, but of one unknown, the intimate 
friend of an eye-witness (St. John), writing from verbal 
indications or notes of the latter. 

8 Jos. D. B. J. 2, 0, 3 ; Matt, xxvii. 27 ; John xix. 13. 

4 The Bima in Aramaic; a word drawn from the 
Greek &rjfxa. 



156 THE DEATH AND 

Pilate was surprised on being disturbed 
at so early an hour, and before taking his 
seat he complained of being called to 
judge in such a case. He would have 
much preferred that the Jews should take 
this execution upon themselves; he fore- 
saw much annoyance in the matter. Here 
was another of those disagreeable cases in 
which he would have to yield to the 
objurgations of the Jews without the 
approval of his own conscience; and he 
began by going into the Prsetorium with 
Jesus alone. 

There an interview took place, the 
character of which has been preserved for 
us by John, although it is not possible 
that he can have known its details; but 
the general color of his account appears 
to be very authentic. 

As for Pilate, his visits to Jerusalem 
were insupportable, and his task as Procu- 
rator at the Feast times was a very delicate 
one. The Jews were intractable, and he 
was very much annoyed at being forced to 
show himself cruel during the few days 
that he was obliged to spend in the capital. 
His interview with the accused shortly 
enlightened him as to his character. To 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 157 

put this man to death would be an 
iniquity, an act contrary to all usages of 
Rome, which wisely permitted conquered 
peoples to work out their religious quar- 
rels according to their own ideas. 

He therefore sincerely desired to save 
Jesus. The Sadducees speedily became 
aware of this, and thought for a moment 
that their prey was about to escape them. 
It was evident that Pilate was seeking all 
possible means of acquitting him ; in vain 
might they shout, "Crucify him! crucify 
him!" 1 Jesus was now in the hands of 
Rome, and guarded by Roman soldiers. 
Annas and his party no longer had the 
slightest power over him ; they had given 
him over to the Romans, and the Romans 
were his keepers. 

The Sadducees uneasily consulted to- 
gether. To work upon Pilate they must 
leave the crime of seduction in the back- 
ground, and undertake to accuse Jesus of 
revolutionary projects. But as he had 
had none, they invented them, trying what 
calumny would do. He who had said, 
"Render unto Caesar the things that are 

1 Matt, xxvii. 22, 23; Mark xv. 13, 14; Luke xxiii. 
21 if. 



158 THE DEATH AND 

Caesar's," was now accused of having 
claimed to be King of the Jews, though 
he had never taken that title; and they 
added, "He forbids to give tribute." 1 

The lie was flagrant. But a little while 
before Jesus had publicly said precisely 
the contrary; but the Sadducees were 
driven into a corner and trembled lest 
Pilate should acquit Jesus; he had only 
to say a word, — not even that, had only 
to make a gesture, — and Jesus was free. 
But if the other accusations had produced 
little effect upon Pilate, this one produced 
still less. It was too much to ask him to 
take it seriously; this working-man, this 
Galilean, a king! At most he was a 
dreamer, and a very inoffensive one. 

Pilate therefore reappeared outside, and 
this time he seated himself upon the Bima ; 
he proposed to finish with the matter and 
pronounce the acquittal. His seat was a 
lofty one; overhead were the four letters 
S. P. Q. R. (Senatus populusque Bomanus); 
at his feet stood Jesus, his hands bound; 
farther away the multitude, restrained by 
a Roman soldier who held his lance hori- 
zontal by way of barrier. The multitude 

1 Luke xxiii. 2-5. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 159 

were vociferating "Crucify him! crucify 
him ! " and behind them were the priests 
directing and urging them on. 1 

For a moment Pilate thought that he 
had found a way out of the difficulty. It 
was Passover- tide, and the custom was at 
this time to set at liberty a prisoner, whom- 
soever the people themselves might choose. 
He proposed to the crowd to release " the 
King of the Jews," 2 using the words 
intentionally, in derision of the priests, 
to make them feel that he was not their 
dupe, and that he put no faith in the accu- 
sation of pretensions to royalty that they 
had preferred against Jesus. 

Once again the Sadducean priests be- 
lieved that their plan had failed; but 

1 Wo say the multitude, for since daylight the news of 
the arrest had spread through the city, and the multi- 
tude must have hastened en masse to the Praetorium. 
The Sanhedrin had feared an uprising in favor of Jesus. 
They had, alas ! no longer anything of that kind to dread. 
The people, who had been sympathetic with Jesus, were 
now turning against him. Such change of mood often 
takes place in popular masses. The losing side is al- 
ways wrong in their eyes, and among those who cried 
" Crucify him ! crucify him ! " were perhaps some of 
those who, the previous Sunday, had most loudly sung 
" llosanna ! Ilosanna ! " 

2 Mark xv. 9. 



160 THE DEATH AND 

happily for them a certain Bar-Kabban 1 
was in prison at the time; he had com- 
mitted a murder and attempted an upris- 
ing. "Ask for Bar-Rabban! " The word 
went round; it was repeated from lip to 
lip, and presently the cry uprose as from 
one voice, "Not this man, Bar-Rabban! " 

Pilate was caught. He had said, 
"Whomever ye will;" he was bound to 
deliver to them whatever criminal they 
might choose. And yet so great was his 
desire to save Jesus that he would not yet 
give up for beaten ; he made a last effort. 

He condemned Jesus to be scourged, a 
relatively insignificant penalty, and in- 
formed the Jews that this would be all. 
"Afterward," he said, "I will let him 
go." 2 Flagellation was always the pre- 
liminary to the suffering of the cross, 3 but 
this was not what Pilate meant. He was 
resolved to set the prisoner at liberty im- 
mediately after having had him scourged. 

This flagellation was accompanied with 
revolting acts. Pilate had at Jerusalem 
only auxiliary troops, soldiers who were 

1 Matt, xxvii. 16 ff. 2 Luke xxiii. 16. 

3 Jos. D. B. J. 2, 14, 9 ; 5, 1 1 , 1 ; 7, 6, 4 ; Titus Livius, 
xxiii. 36 ; Quintus Curtius, 7, 11, 28. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 161 

not true legionaries, and not one of whom 
was a Roman citizen. Picked up from 
among coarse and brutal creatures, recruited 
more or less from anywhere, they made 
the Jews pay dear for their obligation of 
keeping garrison in this unknown land of 
Judea. They put upon Jesus an old red 
chlamys, made him a crown of thorny 
blanches, and placed a reed in his hand. 
Pilate let them have their way; he even 
suffered Jesus to be led before the people 
in this accoutrement. Each of the soldiers 
in turn gave him a buffet, prostrating 
themselves before him in succession, say- 
ing, "Hail! King of the Jews!" It is 
even said that Pilate joined them, crying 
"Behold the man!" 

He hoped that this sort of horse-play 
would suffice, and this is his excuse for 
having let it go on. To ridicule Jesus, to 
change the whole affair into a grotesque 
pageant, was, he thought, to save him. 
He was mistaken; the Sadducees took 
new hope, and their cries "Crucify him! 
crucify him!" uprose continually. 

Then Pilate, to gain time, sent Jesus 
to Antipas, who also had come to Jerusa- 
lem for the Feast. But Jesus said no 
11 



162 THE DEATH AND 

more to Antipas than to Caiaphas, and 
was silent also before Pilate, when he was 
once more brought before him. 

The situation was threatening to be 
prolonged, when the priests were struck 
with an idea which was a veritable inspira- 
tion. They took Pilate on the side of his 
personal interest, saying to him, " If thou 
let this man go thou art not the emperor's 
friend." 1 Now Pilate was a functionary, 
and the thing the functionary loves most 
in the world is his place. Hearing these 
words, he feared the loss of his place ; he 
knew himself to be in peril of denuncia- 
tion by these Jews whom he despised. 
They had already written once to Tiberius 
complaining of him, and Tiberius had 
justified them. . . . " The priests, " Pilate 
thought, "will complain again; they will 
write." It seemed to Pilate that he could 
read their report in advance; he said to 
himself, "I am already in bad odor; I 
shall lose my place." Lose his place! 
He could not go as far as that; and so 
he yielded, though in yielding he dis- 
claimed responsibility. He said to the 
Jews, " You are responsible for the blood 

1 John xix. 12. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 163 

of this man;" and they replied, "His 
blood be on us and on our children." 1 
Horrible wish, which has been only too 
literally fulfilled! The malediction which 
has weighed upon the Jews during so many 
centuries is not yet soon to vanish. We 
have finished with religious intolerance, 
but in vain is liberty of conscience respected ; 
the Jew bears an indelible stigma. That 
odious thing, anti-Semitism, has from cen- 
tury to century a perpetual renascence. 

The true author of the death of Jesus 
was not Pilate, but the Sadducean party. 
Was there not another author even older 
than they? Assuredly: the Saddui 
did no more than apply the law, and the 
law is the true culprit. The passages are 
explicit; 2 every innovator was to be stoned 
without trial. Terrible law, odious fanati- 
cism ; to desire to change the established 
forms of worship was to invoke death. 
The saying, "We have a law," 8 was only 
too true ; it was the law that pronounced 
sentence upon Jesus. He abolished it: 
but to do this he must suffer its penalty. 

1 Matt, xxvii. 25. 

a Deut. xiii. 1 f. ; Lev. xxiv. 16. 

8 John xix. 7. 



164 THE DEATH AND 

As for him, he did not again break 
silence. What was he thinking during 
this long trial, during that struggle before 
Pilate which lasted more than two hours ? 
We picture to ourselves a mute dialogue 
between him and his Father. Seeing 
himself alone, a victim of the fury of 
some, the cowardice of others, certain that 
death was very near, on that same day, he 
called upon his Father, and was always 
certain that his Father was near him. 
Man of sorrows, he was no longer think- 
ing of Galilee, of the preaching of the 
kingdom, of the sympathy of the crowds ; 
he was thinking of the prophets, of that 
Servant of God dying for the sins of his 
people of whom Isaiah had spoken, and 
the conviction of his Messiahship grew 
even stronger in his soul; he knew, he 
was certain, with an immovable certitude. 
Let them utter cries of rage against him, 
rain blows upon him, he would respond 
only by silence, — a silence that was the 
supreme dignity of the last hours of his 
life. 



U ERECTION OF JEBUB CHRIST 105 



(HA PTER X 

Tin: EXECUTION 

A NXAS and Caiaphas had accomplished 
their ends, had succeeded in eyeiy- 
thing: an arrest without a popular tumult, 
a trial accordinj J form, and finally 

a condemnation pronounced by Pilate for a 
crime against the State. Henceforth they 
might rest quiet; tihej had sheltered them- 
selves on all sides. They can be criti- 
cised only on one point, —the precipitation 
of their acts. 1 But in this detail they 
could also be without fear; they had only 
to affirm that the procedure had been 
Long, and that Jesus had been arrested a 
long while before. This is what they 
failed not to do, and the Talmuds tell us a 

1 See above, j>. 147. 

'-' Ifiahna, Sank, vi. 4; Talm. JeraaaL Sank. xi. 4. 
Nevertheless Rabbi Judas advocated an immediate exe- 
cution. Dot t<> make the condemned suffer by the expec- 
tation of death, The desire to be just ami kind to 
criminals is evident all through the tractate of the San- 



166 THE DEATH AND 

that the condemned always remained in 
prison a long time before being executed. 
Therefore, they would conclude, it was 
thus with Jesus. 

The sentence was to the cross ; this was 
inevitable, since it was the Roman author- 
ity that had pronounced it. The Jews on 
their part had desired this manner of 
death, and for long hours they had been 
crying by the voices of their tools, " Crucify 
him ! crucify him ! " 

Death upon the cross was, Cicero says, 
" the most cruel and the most hideous of 
deaths;" 1 a peculiar ignominy was at- 
tached to it; not only were Roman citi- 
zens dispensed from it, but it was only 
to highway robbers bandits and thieves 

hedrin. Such exaggerated kindliness is the act of men 
who feel the responsibility of Jesus' death weighing 
upon their race, and who try to disculpate their ances- 
tors. In the Babylonian Gemara they have dared to 
write that Jesus was hanged on the evening of the Pass- 
over ; that during forty days before the execution the 
Sanhedrin caused his execution to be proclaimed, de- 
claring that he was to be put to death for having se- 
duced Israel, and that whoever had anything to say in 
his defence was invited to say it ; and that not one de- 
fender presented himself. Talm. Babyl. Sank. 6, 2. 
(See Lightfoot, Horce, etc., p. 490.) 

1 " Crudelissimum teterrimumque supplicium," Cic. 
Verr. 5, 64. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 167 

that the Romans refused death by the 
sword. 1 It was also inflicted upon slaves 
when they became guilty of some particu- 
larly atrocious crime. 

The penalty being Roman, the execu- 
tion must be Roman; commanded by 
Romans, done by Romans, with a military 
escort. Jesus was thus to be abandoned 
"to the wicked," as they said in those 
days. 

In ancient times there were no execu- 
tioners, properly speaking. Oriental sover- 
eigns, who were every day commanding 
decapitations, constantly kept executioners 
near them, among their guards, 2 and the 
Romans put their condemned to death by 
means of soldiers. Those of Jerusalem 
pertained, as has been said, to the auxil- 
iary troops, always very ill made up ; and 
it was to this brutal soldiery, habituated 
to cruelty, indifferent to suffering from 
constantly witnessing it, and inaccessible 
to the sight of moral greatness and submis- 
sion, that Jesus was given up. 

1 Jos. Ant. Jud. 17, 10, 10; 20, 6, 2; D. B. J. 5, 11, 
1 ; Apulius, Metam. iii. 9 ; Suetonius, Galba, 9 ; Lam- 
prid. Al. Sev. 23. 

2 Mark vi. 27. 



168 THE DEATH AND 

His robe and mantle, which had been 
taken from him when he was huddled in 
the red chlamys, were given back to him, 
and they set forth with two thieves, whose 
execution was to take place at the same 
time with his. 

It was between eight and nine in the 
morning when the very small and insignifi- 
cant procession of the three condemned 
men went out from the Tower of Antonia 
by the great iron gate which closed its 
entrance l through which they passed, each 
one bearing his cross, or dragging it over 
the pavement of the Roman road. The 
day had long since begun, and of the in- 
habitants of Jerusalem, some were at their 
necessary tasks, others were quietly giving 
themselves to the repose obligatory on this 
day. The little company can hardly have 
attracted much attention; and we may 
imagine that those who met the three 
condemned men did not so much as turn 

1 Jesus cannot have gone directly from the Praeto- 
rium to execution. Once condemned, he must have 
been led by inner doors into the Tower of Antonia, 
which joined the Praetorium. There were the centu- 
rions, the soldiers, and the two thieves, who, since their 
condemnation, had been imprisoned in the tower. Acts 
xxi. 34 passim. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 169 

to look after them. Two scoundrels and 
a madman who were to be done away 
with, — what was there interesting in 
that? Simon of Cyiene, who was coming 
toward them, would do doubt hav< 
on his way, indifferent to the procession 
that he had just passed, if the soldiers bad 
not requisitioned him; 1 and those eri 
are very ill advised who think that an 
execution of this kind could Dot be carried 
out by the Romans on the morning of the 
15th Nisan because of the feast. 9 A 
mounted centurion went first, accompanied 
by only four soldiers; the party then con- 
tained merely eight persona in all. The 
written scroll to be placed above the head 
of each condemned man was carried before 
him as they went.' 5 We have three differ- 
ent texts of that of Jesus. The shortest, 
which is also the oldest, is the most proh- 

1 It is true that Luke speaks of a great crowd (xxiii. 
27), but this is one of the amplifications usual with this 
author. 

2 It has also been said that Simon of Cyrene was 
coming out of the holds, and that men did not work in 
the fields on feast days. But the text simply states 
that Simon the Cyrenian was coming in from the coun- 
try, and says nothing about work. 

8 It is not so said, but it was always done. 



170 THE DEATH AND 

able, "King of the Jews." 1 Instead of 
writing Seducer, or Rebel, Pilate made a 
point of making the Jews ridiculous to 
the end, to revenge himself on them for 
insisting that he should condemn the 
Nazarene. The Sadducees sent to ask him 
to modify the inscription ; he refused point 
blank. 

The condemned, carrying their crosses, 
walked behind the soldiers who bore the 
inscriptions. Wood was scarce in Judea, 
and a certain number of these "trees of 
justice," always the same, were certainly 
kept in reserve and used several times 
over. Perhaps a troop of vagabonds fol- 
lowed the condemned with insults ; behind 
them came St. John and a few women, 
timid, anxious, overcome with fatigue and 
sorrow. 

The event which has made the world 
new was, on the day that it occurred, only 
an obscure crime, a hurried execution, 
a petty wrong, carried out as rapidly as 
possible, and passing almost unperceived in 
a city of sixty thousand inhabitants, not 
one of whose daily habits it in the least 
disturbed. 

1 Mark xv. 26. Cf. Luke xxiii. 38. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 171 

Usually executions took place at Gol- 
gotha, outside the wall, northeast of the 
city, upon a bare hillock in the midst of 
an open common. Jesus, worn out by the 
fatigues and suffering of the previous 
night, probably faint with hunger, perhaps 
less robust than his companions in wretch- 
edness, was incapable of carrying his 
cross to the end. He had not even the 
strength to drag the two thick beams, after 
the usual custom of the condemned. 

The first comer, an unknown individual 
who was coming in from the fields, and 
whose name was Simon of Cyrene, was 
called to his aid. The soldiers roughly 
requisitioned him, with the coolness of 
conquerors in a conquered country. In- 
deed it was necessary, for they themselves 
would not have carried the cross; the 
Romans never carried the accursed tree. 
To this duty, imposed upon Simon, we 
no doubt owe our knowledge of the last 
hours of Jesus. 

When they finally arrived at the place 
of execution it was nine o'clock. 1 

Before nailing the condemned to the 

1 This is the hour given by Mark, and the most 
probable one. See above, p. 92. 



172 THE DEATH AND 

cross an attempt was made to deaden their 
sensibilities ; the Jews had introduced this 
custom to mitigate the atrocious sufferings 
of the victims' last hours by dulling their 
consciousness, at least in part. They were 
given wine mingled with strong aromatics, 
which benumbed them. 1 Jesus tasted the 
beverage and at once refused it; he de- 
sired to retain consciousness to the very 
last, and at the cost of greater suffering to 
keep full possession of himself. 

The soldiers planted the three larger 
beams in three of the numerous holes 
which they found already made, serving 
for any crucifixion. The further proceed- 
ings might be in one of two ways: the 
smaller piece of wood, which was to be 
placed horizontally across the top of the 
other, lying still on the ground, the exe- 
cutioners might lay the victim down, and 
extending his arms, nail or fasten the 
hands to the two extremities of this beam, 
then raising the whole, fix it transversely 
at the top of the larger. Or they could 
adopt another way : the smaller beam might 
be first placed in position, and when the 
cross was completed and set upright, they 

1 Babyl. Sank. 43a ; Prow xxxi. 6. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 173 

could fasten or nail the condemned man 
to it. 1 

The cross not being high it was easy 
to proceed thus; and it is probable that 
the latter method was most often adopted. 
They must have nailed the hands while 
the feet of the victim, who was standing 
upright, were still upon the ground; then 
they lifted the feet a little and fastened 
them to the lower part of the upright. 
When fixed in position and nailed, ti 
barely escaped the ground. 

When the feet were nailed the knees 
were naturally bent outward, and in order 
that the weight of the body should not 
tear the hands, the former was supported 
by a billet of wood upon which the victim 
was half seated. 

The three crucifixions were very easily 
and quickly performed. The soldiers no 
doubt accomplished their horrible task 
mechanically, with the calm indifference 
of those who often do the same thing. 
Jesus uttered no complaint; he kept per- 
fect silence. Yet in the early part of his 
suffering he said, and the words are cer- 

1 Jos. D. B. J. 7, 6, 4 ; Cicero, Verr. 5, 66. 



174 THE DEATH AND 

tainly authentic, "Father, forgive them, 
for they know not what they do!" 1 

What he must have been suffering at 
this moment is indescribable. The wounds 
in his hands and feet were giving him 
acute and atrocious pain; the blood was 
trickling from them drop by drop to the 
ground. It is true that this hemorrhage 
was soon checked; but then a sort of 
numbness took possession of his limbs and 
a violent fever began to rage. 

The pannicularia, 2 that is, the personal 
effects of the victims, the little that they 
left behind them, were given to the execu- 
tioners. They shared among themselves 
the garments of Jesus, and drew lots for 
his seamless robe. All these small details, 
minutely related, presuppose an eye-wit- 
ness. The Fourth Gospel states that St. 
John was there, as well as the mother of 
Jesus, who had the courage to be pres- 
ent at her son's execution, accompanied 
by the Galilean women; the presence of 
Simon the Cyrenian, who has already 
been mentioned, appears to be also most 
probable. 

1 Luke xxiii. 34. 

2 Dig. 47, 20 ; De bonis damnat. 6. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 175 

When all the preliminaries were com- 
pleted, the soldiers seated themselves to 
watch their three victims ; ! jokes, puns, 
coarse insults rained upon the unhappy 
sufferers. Jesus especially was the butt 
of the most odious witticisms. 

What were his dying words? Here 
again the Gospels are not entirely in 
accord, but nowhere are their divergences 
more natural. The last words of cele- 
brated criminals are almost never pre- 
served in authentic form; usually the 
accounts of the most trustworthy eye-wit- 
nesses differ sensibly. The reason is per- 
fectly simple : the emotion, the agitation, 
the grief of the friends who are present 
prevent their hearing clearly or remember- 
ing accurately; and on the other hand the 
hatred of enemies often distorts these last 
farewells. 

The fact is that we do not know pre- 
cisely what were the last words of Jesus. 
His recommendation of his mother to St. 
John and of St. John to his mother is 
most touching; and as it is found in a 
Gospel which is directly connected with 
the apostle John we have no reason for 

1 Matt, xxvii. 36. Cf. Petr. Satyr. Ill, 112. 



176 THE DEATH AND 

doubting its authenticity. According to 
Luke, one of the malefactors was con- 
verted, 1 but Matthew and Mark positively 
state that the thieves insulted Jesus with 
the others. 

Little by little darkness came over his 
soul ; he felt himself sinking in an abyss 
of despair, and passed through a moral 
agony so black that even the face of his 
Father was veiled from him. The cer- 
tainty that had never left him for a single 
instant, sustaining him in all his trials, 
the assurance that he was one with the 
Father and the Father with him, that he 
was accomplishing his will, doing his 
work, that he was going down into only 
such depths as his Father bade him pass 
through, and suffering only what the 
Father willed that he should suffer, — this 
certainty vanished, and he cried out, " My 
God! my God! why hast thou forsaken 
me?" 2 The horror and terror that such a 

1 Luke xxiii. 39-43. 

2 Matt, xxvii. 46 ; Mark xv. 34. There is no room 
to doubt the authenticity of this utterance. Who indeed 
could have invented it ? Preserved in its Aramaic form 
in our Greek Gospels we have it just as Jesus uttered it, 
just as the witnesses heard it : " Eli, Eli, lama sabach- 
thani?" 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 177 

cry indicates are unspeakable. Jesus be- 
lieved himself to be forsaken by his 
Father! 

It has been questioned whether he was 
not simply repeating the Twenty-second 
Psalm to fortify himself, bat without 
strength to go beyond the first verse. One 
would be glad to believe it, bat the 
hypothesis of despair is too plausible aot 
to be made. 

Why, then, did lie utter such a cry? 
Because he had expected a miracle that 
did not take place? Did lie doubt his 

mission, the love of the Father; he who 
had never doubted either? These ques- 
tions remain unanswered, and we can only 
bow with pitying and anguished heart 

before the intensity of moral suffering 
which such words reveal, adding tn them 

no word, and sincerely sorry for those who 
have the courage to discuss this dying cry, 
and draw dogmatic conclusions from it. 

One of the tortures of the infernal agony 
of the cross was a burning thirst which 
devoured the sufferer. The desire to 
drink became with Jesus so intolerable 
that he exclaimed, " I thirst ! " 1 A soldier, 

1 John xix. 28. 
12 



178 THE DEATH AND 

more humane than the others, went to the 
leather bottle of posca l which he ordinarily 
used. It had a sponge; he dipped it in 
the liquid, and sticking it on the end of a 
reed he lifted it to the lips of Jesus, who 
could thus drink a little. 2 

His despairing cry had lasted only for 
the space of a lightning flash; he had 
regained all his serenity. But the life of 
the body was rapidly becoming exhausted ; 
death was approaching with long strides ; 
and in his increasing physical weakness 
his moral strength was continually re- 
newed. The conviction that he was ful- 
filling his mission again became entirely 
his, and there on the cross he recovered 
that sense of perfect communion with his 
Father which made up to him for all the 
rest. 

It was three o'clock in the afternoon; 
six hours, therefore, that the victims had 
been hanging on the cross, and their 

1 Posca was the name of a mixture of water and 
vinegar which the Roman soldiers always had with 
them on their expeditions, among which were included 
capital executions. (Spart. Vie d'Adrien X.; Vulcatius 
Gallicanus, Vie d'Avidius Cassias, 5.) 

2 Matt, xxvii. 48; Mark xv. 36; Luke xxiii. 36; 
John xix. 28-30. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 179 

sufferings had hardly begun, for men 
often lived several days in this appalling 
condition. Men of good constitution died 
only of hunger, and in general death was 
produced simply by the arrested circula- 
tion resulting from the abnormal position 
of tlif body; but Jesus succumbed to 
sudden death. All at once he uttered a 
terrible cry; a blood-vessel had broken in 
his heart, 1 his head was seen to fall upon 
his breast; he was dead. 

What had been his last words ? Accord- 
ing to Luke's Gospel, 9 lie had said, 
"Father, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit." According to another text, 8 lie 
had cried, "It is finished." We shall not 
choose between these two utterances; both 
of them are true. Jesus had indeed fin- 
ished everything; his work was complete 
and perfect, lacking nothing. And it was 
certainly to his Father that, dying, he 
committed the care of his soul, that soul 
that never, save perhaps for a single 

1 The hypothesis of the rupture of a blood-vessel is 
the only one that explains how death could have oc- 
curred so suddenly and so promptly. 

2 Luke xxiii. 46. 

3 John xix. 30. Matthew and Mark say only, " He 
cried with a loud voice." 



180 THE DEATH AND 

moment, had ceased to be profoundly 
united to his Father. 

The two malefactors were, however, still 
full of life, and their lives would appar- 
ently have been considerably prolonged, 
perhaps for several days, if the day had 
not been Friday. At six o'clock the 
Sabbath would begin, and the Law 1 for- 
bade that a body, living or dead, should 
remain upon the cross on the day of 
rest. 

The Romans had no motive for refusing 
to respect this custom. It was necessary, 
then, to finish the wretches who still lived, 
make certain that Jesus was really dead, 
and hasten to take down the bodies from 
the crosses. 

To put an end to the thieves, they were 
subjected to a second torture, — the break- 
ing of the legs (crurifragiuni). In gen- 
eral this was not done ; when it was desired 
to give the finishing stroke to one cruci- 
fied, they struck him on the head, or they 
pierced him through the heart, to bring on 
immediate death. The crurifragiuni was 
a special torture, distinct from that of the 

1 Deut. xxi. 22, 23 ; Josh. viii. 29, x. 26 f. ; Jos. D. 
B. J. 4, 5, 12 ; Mishna, Sanh. vi. 9. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 181 

cross, iiiid generally applied to slaves and 
prisoners of war; it was not necessarily 
mortal, but it here appears that it sufficed 
to cause tin 1 immediate death of the two 
malefactors, for their bodies were taken 
down from the cross before six o'clock 
and thrown into the common sewer, or 
some other shameful place destined for the 

burial of suicides. 1 This was the Jewish 

law. According to Etonian law, the three 
bodies would have remained upon tin' 

crosses till the)' were eaten by birds of 

prey. 8 

When the soldier came to break the legs 
of Jesus he saw that this was useless, as 
he was already dead; still, tor greater 
security, he gave him the true finishing 
stroke, piercing his side with a lance in 
the region of the heart. 

What became of the body? As has 
been said, it could not remain upon the 
cross to be eaten by birds, because upon 
this point the Romans let the Jews have 
their own way. The latter would cer- 

1 Mishna, Sank. vi. 9. 

- Horace, Epistles, 1, 16, 48 ; Juvenal, 14, 77 ; Lucan, 
6, 544; Plautus, Miles 67. 2, 4, 19: Artemiilorus, Onir. 
2, 53 ; Pliny, 36, 24 ; Plutarch, Life of Cleomenus, 39 ; 
Fetrouius, Sat. Ill, 112. 



182 THE DEATH AND 

tainly have thrown the body of Jesus into 
the sewer with that of the other malefac- 
tors if they had been masters of it, for it 
was to their interest to make away even 
with his body; they would not really be 
done with this man until nothing was left 
of him, not even his corpse. If they gave 
it honorable burial, people would come to 
visit his tomb. Legends would very soon 
cluster around his sepulchre; and it is 
probable that Annas and Caiaphas were 
very greatly chagrined when they learned 
that the body of Jesus was not to be given 
over to them. 

In fact the Roman law permitted and 
even commanded that the body of an exe- 
cuted man must be delivered to any one 
who claimed it ; 1 and one of the unknown 
friends in Jerusalem (we have already met 
with several), a secret disciple, a certain 
Joseph Ha-ramathaim, 2 begged the body 
from Pilate. It was the more readily 
accorded that he was a well-known person- 
age, a member of the Sanhedrin, rich and 
esteemed. Nicodemus joined him. They 

1 Digest, xlviii. 24, De cadaver ibas punitorum. 

2 Joseph of Arimathea. Matt, xxvii. 57 ; Mark xv. 
43 ; Luke xxiii. 50 ; John xix. 38. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 183 

desired to embalm the body, not accord- 
ing to the Egyptian manner, for indefinite 
preservation, but after the Jewish fashion, 
which consisted simply in wrapping it 
around with small bandages with myrrh 
and aloes. 

There was need of haste. It was draw- 
ing near to six o'clock, and if this hour 
arrived before all was finished, the Sabbath 
would be profaned. To complete their 
task before six o'clock, they resolved 
upon a provisional burial. 1 Joseph of 
Arimathea had lately prepared a tomb for 
himself in a garden belonging to him, 
only a few steps from Golgotha. 

There was no time to lose. Nicodemus 
and he drew out the nails supporting the 
bleeding body, that it should not fall on 
being taken down; their pious hands 
washed and wiped the wounds before 
wrapping it in a winding-sheet which they 
had brought with them. Then they car- 
ried it away, followed by faithful friends, 
the Galilean women uttering the strident 
cries which were a necessity at funerals, 
however sincere and profound might be 
the grief. All was done most hastily; it 

1 John xix. 41, 42. 



184 THE DEATH AND 

may be said that the burial too was 
hastened. 

The tomb of Joseph of Arimathea was 
a grotto forming a small chamber; in the 
farthest wall an alcove had been hewn out 
and surmounted by an arch. 

The men extended the body in this 
alcove and closed the entrance with a 
stone which was set in a groove, and so 
large that it was very difficult to handle it. 
The Sabbath began at the very moment 
when all was finished, and those who had 
taken part in it dispersed, after having 
promised one another to return early Sun- 
day morning to finish the still incomplete 
embalming. 

Every one returned home, hurrying to 
light the Sabbath lamp. Around the sepul- 
chre where no one remained night grad- 
ually came down, and the great silence of 
the tomb set in. 

The doleful day was over, everything 
had returned to its usual order ; things had 
resumed their course, if indeed they had 
been interrupted. 

The three deaths which have just been 
described were three casual executions, 
such as had occurred the day before, such 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 185 

as would be repeated on the morrow; and 
the entire Jewish people with perfect 
tranquillity prepared for the Sabbath rest, 
which would be all the more profound 
that it fell upon one of the days of the 
Feast. 



186 THE DEATH AND 



CHAPTER XI 

THE RESURRECTION NARRATIVES 

The Gospel Narratives 

TP to this point, except in minor de- 
tails, we have made no critical 
studies. We have almost exclusively con- 
fined ourselves to setting forth historic 
certainties. Side by side with this narra- 
tive of events we have had an essential 
purpose, — to learn what was going on in 
the soul of Jesus, what was the order of 
his thoughts before and during his min- 
istry. This work is completed in the very 
imperfect degree in which it may be done. 

At present a study of an entirely differ- 
ent order is imposed upon us; a minute 
study which the reader may consider as 
an appendix to our work, 1 but a necessary 
appendix, since we have to treat of ques- 
tions such as this : What took place dur- 
1 See Preface, p. xi. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 187 

ing the days that followed the burial of 
Jesus, and what are we to understand by 
what is called his Resurrection? 

Let us begin with a very important 
preliminary remark: the question <>f ii 
chapters is of an historic fact. We admit 
that its consequences are immense; they 
have taken on colossal proportions. But in 
itself there is simply a fact of the past to 
establish (if indeed it is possible to estab- 
lish it), nothing more and nothing less; 
and to establish it according to the ordi- 
nary methods of historic criticism as our 
age has brought them to light and made 
them potent. Our means of knowledge, 
our requirements and our processes of 
meeting these requirements, have been 
made new within a hundred years. Well, 
let us make use of these processes, let us 
put forward these requirements and study 
this fact of history, weighing the pros and 
cons without the least a priori. 

It is the more necessary to say this, 
because in no case has a priori been given 
freer course than in this question of the 
resurrection of Jesus. "This must have 
happened. It is altogether impossible that 
that did not take place." Let us leave 



188 THE DEATH AND 

these ways of proceeding, carefully guard- 
ing against them. It is truly strange that 
men continually assume to know what 
must have taken place instead of seeking 
for what actually did take place ; and that 
they always conclude that facts must have 
been thus and so, instead of simply dis- 
covering what they were. 

On Sunday morning, April 9th of the 
year 30 (if our method of reckoning is cor- 
rect), a little before sunrise, the tomb was 
empty. It was the women who had been 
present at the burial who made known the 
disappearance of the body. They had 
come, as had been agreed, as soon as the 
Sabbath was ended, to proceed with a sort 
of embalming more complete than that of 
Friday evening, which had necessarily 
been insufficient. 

Their desire to embalm a body already 
in the tomb appears to have been in no 
sense extraordinary. It seems, therefore, 
that for persons who died on Friday even- 
ings, at an hour when it was impossible to 
give the usual care to the body without 
profaning the Sabbath, the necessary atten- 
tions were given on Sunday morning at 
the tomb itself. It needed only to roll 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST L89 

away the stone which closed the ent ra 
to the tomb, and that done any one n: 
lively into the sepulchre, which v 
grotto entered on the level, and perform 
the usual embalming. 

The women came, then, at the 
dawn, to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. 
They were asking themselves who would 
roll away the stone for them, when from 
afar they perceived that the Btone was no 
Longer in its place ; it hud been rolled "ii 

one side, and the doOT of the sepulchre 

yawning. They drew near, trembling 
with emotion and Lci'iff : they Leaned i 
and peered in ; no one was there Jesus 1 
body was no! there. What had become 
tA' it? Some one had taken away their 
Master's body, and they knew not where 

he had laid it. 1 

This is the first faet that stands out, 

certain, authentic, undeniable, from all 

the narratives. There IS not the slight 
doubt that the tomh was empty on tie' 

morning of the third day after Je 

denth ; that is, the first day of the week. 

What had happened ? 

To this question the four Gospel narra- 

1 John xx. 2. 



190 THE DEATH AND 

tives are unanimous in replying that Jesus 
had returned to life, and that, having 
arisen from the dead, he appeared to a cer- 
tain number of persons on the third day 
and the days following; but all four 
differ, and are even contradictory, as to 
the details. 

If we read attentively, we see that the 
Gospels are the echoes of two entirely dis- 
tinct traditions, which no doubt became 
confounded in the end, but which were 
at first distinct and separately developed. 
According to one, the appearances of Jesus 
were all in Galilee; this is the Galilean 
tradition. According to the other, they 
took place in Jerusalem and its immediate 
environs; this is the Judean or Jerusalem- 
ite tradition. 

Let us first study the Galilean tradition. 
It is reproduced in its oldest form in the 
Gospels of Mark and Matthew. The 
latest form of this tradition and the last 
stage of its development known to us is 
set forth in the apocryphal Gospel of 
Peter, discovered a few years ago. 

This is the story of the resurrection 
given by this tradition; it attempts to 
describe the very act. It says that in the 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 191 

night between Saturday and Sunday the 
soldiers who were guarding the tomb 
heard a great voice from heaven. They 
raised their eyes ; the heavens were opened, 
and two shining angels descended from 
heaven and came to the sepulchre. The 
stone which served as a door rolled away of 
itself. The two angels entered the tomb, 
and the soldiers made haste to awaken 
their captain and the elders of the Jews, 
who were with them watching the tomb 
but who had fallen asleep. While they 
were telling them what they had seen, be- 
hold three men came forth from the tomb, 
— that is, Christ, supported by the two 
angels; the cross on which lie had suffered 
followed them. The angels were so tall 
that their heads touched the sky. Jesus 
was taller still, and his head passed 
through the sky. A voice was heard 
from heaven, saying, " Hast thou preached 
to them who are asleep?" and a reply 
came from the cross, saying, " Yes." The 
whole company ran to report the fact to 
Pilate. Meanwhile, at daybreak, Mary 
Magdalene came to the tomb, with several 
other women, to embalm the body. An 
angel appeared to them, announced to 



192 THE DEATH AND 

them the resurrection, and they fled, 
affrighted. The angel had said to them, 
"He is risen, and gone thither from 
whence he was sent," that is, to heaven. 
It is seen that the Pseudo-Peter placed 
the ascension immediately after the com- 
ing forth from the tomb. This, however, 
did not prevent the return of the Risen 
One to earth; for the lost conclusion of 
the Gospel of Peter apparently included 
the narrative of an appearance on the shore 
of the Lake of Tiberias. 

According to Mark, 1 this is what took 
place: Three women, whom he names, 
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of 
James, and Salome, went into the tomb, 
saw there an angel, who announced to 
them the resurrection of Jesus, and bade 
them inform Peter and the other apostles, 
telling them that the Risen Jesus would 
precede them into Galilee, where they 
should see him as he had said. Terrified, 
the women fled, and said nothing to any 
one. 

The close of the Gospel of Mark is lost, 
but it is evident that what followed, no 
more than the Gospel of Peter, related the 

1 xvi. 1-8. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 193 

appearances in Judea, for the angel bade 
the apostles "go to Galilee/' 1 

According to Matthew, two women only, 
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, 
came "to see" the sepulchre. An angel 
descended from heaven, rolled away the 
stone from the door of the sepulchre, and 
sat upon it; he spoke to the women in 
nearly the same words as the angel in 
Mark's Gospel, the latter being, however, 
within the sepulchre: u Jesus is arisen ; he 
goes before the apostles into Galilee, there 
they shall see him." The women, at once 
trembling and joyful, far from saying 
nothing, as Mark affirms, ran to carry t la- 
news to the apostles. Then Jesus appeared 
to them, and he also told them that it was 
in Galilee that the apostles should see 
him. The eleven therefore repaired to 
Galilee, "unto the mountain where Jesus 
had appointed them " (though there had 
not before been any allusion to a moun- 
tain). Jesus appeared to them, and — a 
curious detail — some disciples doubted, 
though they saw him before them, alive. 
Jesus, however, spoke to them, command- 
ing them to preach the gospel to all nations. 

1 Mark xvi. 7. 
13 



194 THE DEATH AND 

He instituted baptism, giving its ecclesias- 
tical formula, " Into the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," 
and he declared to his disciples that he 
would remain with them even to the end 
of the world. 

Thus closes the Gospel of Matthew, 
without the slightest allusion to the ascen- 
sion into heaven. This Gospel, notwith- 
standing the brief apparition of Jesus near 
the tomb, belongs then also to the Galilean 
tradition. According to it, Jesus showed 
himself to his disciples only once, 1 upon a 
mountain in Galilee. 

According to these narratives of the 
Galilean tradition, the Risen Jesus, not- 
withstanding the interview mentioned in 
Matthew xxviii. 9, 2 appeared only in Gali- 
lee. More than this, it was not on the 
third day that he showed himself to his 
disciples; it was at least a week after 
the crucifixion that Peter and the other 
apostles saw Jesus. 

Finally, these were true apparitions, 

1 Matt, xxviii. 16. 

2 This interview, in fact, confirms our assertion, since 
Jesus himself there says that it is in Galilee that he 
will show himself to his apostles (verse 10). 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 195 

the apparitions of a being who no longer 
dwells on earth; they are in DO sense a 
continuation of the life of Rabbi Jesuc 
life interrupted by death for a few hours or 
a few days, to be resumed afterward such 
as it had been before. NToj Jesus appears 
and disappears. According to the ( rospel of 
Peter, he even had a celestial body, and a 
very extraordinary one. The Galilean tra- 
dition then tells of four apparitions. 
It is evident that stories of this sort 

would lead the incredulous to say: That 
which appeared to you was simply a phan- 
tom without life or reality. Believers 

would reply: Not at all; it was Indeed 

the body which we knew that appeared to 

us; and the proof is that the body is no 
longer in the tomb. The sepulchre has 

been officially recognized by the authori- 
ties as empty, and that after they had 
sealed the door and placed a guard before 

it. Besides, adds the Pseudo-Peter, the 

Roman soldiers and the Jews saw the 
Ascension of the Risen One; he went up 
into heaven before their eyes, supported 
by angels, with his cross following him. 

In Jerusalem and Judea the resurrection 
of Jesus was otherwise described. 



196 THE DEATH AND 

This is how Luke narrates it: Several 
women (he names three of them, Mary 
Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of 
James, but there were others) come to the 
tomb and find it empty. Two angels tell 
them of the resurrection, but without 
informing them where they are to see the 
Risen Lord. They run to tell the news to 
the eleven apostles, who do not believe 
them. 

That very evening Jesus appears to two 
disciples who are going to Emmaus. He 
shows himself to them, using a sort of 
dissimulation. A divine power further 
hinders these disciples from recognizing 
him. He was no doubt recognizable, but 
a higher will, which could be none other 
than that of God, held their eyes. As 
for Jesus, he acts as though he were some 
one else ; he appears not to know why the 
disciples are sad, and asks what is the 
matter with them, although he knows 
perfectly well. He makes as if he would 
go beyond the village of Emmaus. Finally 
he makes himself known to them, and at 
that very moment he disappears, the vision 
vanishes. The two disciples at once 
return to Jerusalem, and there are told 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 197 

that Peter has seen him also. Then sud- 
denly Jesus appears. The disciples he- 
lie ve that they are seeing a disembodied 
spirit; but Jesus shows them Ins wounds 

and begins to eal. Then lie leads them 
a 

to Bethany (all this, apparently, the same 

evening, Sunday, the first day of the 

week) and disappears, being parted from 

them in a final manner, while in the aet 
of blessing them. 

Luke thus offers US another sen- 
appearances. According to him there 
were none in Galilee, and the scenes of 
the resurrection took place in Jerusalem 
or its immediate neighborhood. It was 
upon the .Mount of Olives, near Bethany, 

that JeSUS Was seen for the last time: 
from there he arose into heaven. 1 the same 
day according to the Gospel; forty days 
later the same author Bays, in so many 
words, in the firsl chapter of the Acts of 
(he Apostles. 

Such, then, are the two independent 
and distinct traditions of the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ held in the early 
days. 

The Fourth Gospel unites them. It 

1 Actsi. 12. 



198 THE DEATH AND 

tells how Mary Magdalene went alone to 
the tomb on the morning of the third day ; 
it was empty. She ran to apprise Peter 
and the other disciple whom Jesus loved. 
They came, made certain that the body of 
Jesus was no longer there, and went away. 
Mary remained alone ; two angels appeared 
to her, and finally Jesus himself, who 
would not permit himself to be touched. 
On the evening of that day he appeared, 
the eleven apostles being assembled, then 
disappeared. A week later they saw him 
again, and this time he permitted Thomas 
to touch him. A supplementary chapter, 
added to the Gospel at a later time, shows 
us Jesus taking a meal with his disciples 
on the shore of Lake Tiberias, but it was 
difficult to recognize him. He spoke to 
Peter three times, putting to him the 
question, "Lovest thou me?" Then he 
reinstated him in his place as apostle. 

Thus the Fourth Gospel unites the two 
currents, the Galilean and the Judean, 
but without losing one in the other. We 
are approaching the time when the two 
traditions were definitively placed side by 
side to form a continuous narrative. But 
this juxtaposition was artificial; it was 



RESURRECTION OF JESUB CHRIST 199 

made after the event The two traditionfl 
were developed each in its own sur- 
roundings. 

The reader lias already perceived the 
great, the fundamental difference between 
them. According to the Galilean tradi- 
tion tlie Risen One had hut a fugitive 
life, and made only brief appearam 
According to the Jerusalem tradition, on 
the contrary, the life of the Risen One 
was the continuation pure and simple of 

his earthly life. The latter, interrupted 

during the space of three times twelve 

hours, recommenced such as it had left 
off. The Resurrection days are days sup- 
plementary to those of the earthly ministry 

of Jesus, and must be added to it. This 

ministry was continued. No douht there 
are two points of difference. Jesus was 

not constantly present and was not. always 
recognizable. He could be instantane- 
ously transported from place to place; he 
appeared and disappeared; but he had the 

very body which had been put in the tomb, 
the body which died upon the cross and 
became a corpse. This body, this physical 
organism, had become alive again; it ate 
and drank and walked. The Risen Jesus 



200 THE DEATH AND 

had interviews with his apostles just as 
before. 

It is interesting to observe that the 
Jerusalemite form of the tradition became 
ever more affirmative in the sense of the 
materialization of the body of Jesus. It 
is easy to follow the progress which it has 
made in this respect. When the apostles 
saw Jesus the first time they thought they 
saw a spirit. 1 But Jesus spoke to them; 
he replied in advance to objections, and 
finally he ate fish and honey before them. 
This continuation of the Master's life with 
his friends lasted precisely forty days. The 
figure is fixed, and at his last appearance 
the material body of Jesus was detached 
from earth and rose toward heaven, toward 
the abode of God, who is overhead in the 
blue sky, above the clouds. From that 
day they never again saw Jesus. He 
is no longer corporeally present on the 
earth. He had been up to this time; 
but from that time forth he has been 
seated in heaven at the right hand of 
God, and he will not reappear until the 
Last Judgment. 

Furthermore, during the forty supple - 
1 Luke xxiv. 37. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 201 

mentary days Jesus was seen only by his 
disciples and friends; that is, by those 

who believed in him. 

Such are the gospel stories of the n 
rection of Jesus. 



202 THE DEATH AND 



CHAPTER XII 

THE RESURRECTION NARRATIVES 

The Narrative of Saint Paul 

/ T V HE reader has no doubt observed that 
up to this point we have not yet 
heard a single eye-witness of the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus. Not one of the four Evan- 
gelists says : " I have seen the Risen One ; 
he appeared unto me." On the contrary, 
all four bring only indirect witness, — 
the statement of others and not their own 
experience. 

It is especially interesting to note that 
we have not the direct testimony of a sin- 
gle one of the eleven apostles, and so far 
as St. John is concerned, if he is the 
author of the Fourth Gospel, this is most 
extraordinary. If this book was written 
by him, if it is entirely from his hand, it 
is most strange that he does not say in 
speaking of the Risen Jesus, as he did of 



URRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 203 

is crucified, M I IV who saw bare witu 
and he knows thai he saith true." Tins 
would have been Johannean langua 
B n these words, applied bo the Chris' 
returned to life, are not found in the 
Gospel by St. John. I [e, like the otb 
knows of thf resurre tion of Jesus only 
by hearsay, and gives us only the testimony 
of othei dally of Mary Magdalene* 

It is true thai he relates the appe 
to the Eleven, those of the first two Sun- 
days, an 1 being one of the Eleven he was 
present. Bui why does he not say M I 
w ,i j there " ' I le remains Impersonal, 
and expresses himself as if he were speak- 
ing of other persons than himself. 1 

I [ave we then the testimony o! no single 
direct witness of the resurrection of 
Jesus ' 

We have: WS | 1 he writ IngS of a 

man who says, I have seen him. These 
writings are certainly authentic, and this 

man is the greatest among all the disciples 

of Jesus Christ. We refer to the testimony 

1 This remark confirms lis in the opinion that John 
himself 'lid not write the Fourth GoepeL Besides, the 

hook, while continually speaking of an eye-w; 
never claims to have heen written hy him. See Jesus 
Christ during his Ministry, Introduction, p. xxvii. 



204 THE DEATH AND 

of St. Paul in his First Epistle to the 
Corinthians. 

In this letter Paul writes in so many 
words, fca/xol wcj)6r) : " To me also lie ap- 
peared." 1 Let us study this testimony 
and ascertain its value. 

In the passage in which he thus speaks 
St. Paul relates not merely the appearance 
with which he had been favored, but all 
the others, at least those with which he 
was acquainted, and gives a fifth narrative 
of the resurrection of Jesus, widely dif- 
ferent from those of the four Gospels, and 
much older than theirs. 

In this narrative Paul contradicts the 
Gospels, and especially the Synoptics, be- 
fore they were written. Between them 
and Paul, since we must choose, there is 
no room for a moment's hesitation. Paul 
wrote in the }^ear 57. Not only are his 
statements much earlier than those of the 
Synoptics, they are also earlier than the 
development which the traditions that be- 
came fixed in the Gospels finally received. 
Paul is a direct witness. The Synoptics 
simply repeat what they have heard from 
one or another ; Paul tells what he has seen. 
1 1 Cor. xv. 8. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 205 

The following are the points on which 
the Evangelists and Paul differ. Accord- 
ing to Paul, the appearances covered a 
considerable time; they might still occur, 
and they occurred anywhere; while Mat- 
thew, Mark, and Luke declare that the 
appearances have come to an end, and that 
when they did occur it was at a given place 
and no other. They localize them, placing 
them only where Jesus had been in Life. 

These two differences are uot the only 

ones : the list of appearan . vn by 

St. Paul hardly accords with what the 
Evangelists say, and it is of great impor- 
tance. He gives the complete catalogue, 
in their order, of the appearances, as it was 
accepted in Jerusalem during his Lifetime. 
\\Y cannot go hack of t: 

Paul was acquainted with the Jerusalem 
tradition, and this is what he says: Jesus 
appeared (they were apparitions, w(p07]) — 
L, to Peter; 2, to the Twelve; 8, to more 
than five hundred brethren; 4, to Jam< 
5, to all the apostles (that is, no doubt, to 
the Twelve and to others hearing the 
name of apostles, like Barnabas); 1 6, "to 
me, as to one horn out of due time." - 

1 Acts xiv. 14 passim. - 1 Cor. xv. 8. 



206 THE DEATH AND 

Six appearances, then. The first ob- 
servation to make is that Paul saw no 
difference between the appearances to the 
Twelve and the one with which he had 
been favored; 1 quite the contrary, he 
treats them all as precisely the same. 

Let us also observe that of the six 
appearances of which Paul speaks, the 
first and second are mentioned in the 
Third Gospel; but the third, that to five 
hundred brethren, is nowhere mentioned, 
nor is that to James. More than this, 
Paul omits the appearance to the women 
at the tomb, notably that to Mary Magda- 
lene ; neither does he refer to the appear- 
ance upon a mountain in Galilee, nor to 
that to the disciples of Emmaus. 

Let us more closely examine the appear- 
ance to Paul ; it is evidently that which 
took place on the road to Damascus, and 
which, in the Epistle to the Galatians, 2 he 
calls a revelation of the Son " in him." In 
none of the narratives of Paul's conver- 

1 In another Epistle, not less certainly authentic 
than the First to the Corinthians, his Epistle to the 
Galatians (i. 15, 16), Paul thus defiues the appearance 
vouchsafed to him : " It pleased God to reveal his Son 
in me." 

2 Gal. i. 15. 



RESURRECTION OF J I-S US CHRIST 207 

sioii which we find in the Acts of the 
Apostles l is it said that be saw Jesus ; 
he was dazzled, lit* was blinded, and he 
heard a voice. Nor had he touched the 
Being who appeared to him; bat he was 
convinced that it was Jesus himself, that 
he was there and speaking to him. 

Here there is a witness who fulfils the 
conditions generally required of a witne 
bis attestation is contained in an undis- 
puted letter; and Dot only does he affirm 
the Resurrection like the others, but he 

writes in so many words, "He appeared 
to me " (icafioi a><f>0T]). 

The appearance with which he was 
favored presents peculiar characteristics 

which the others do not present, and such 
testimony as this is wry different from all 
that we have hitherto collected. All the 
others, as has been observed, are, without 

a single exception, merely hearsays. Mary 

Magdalene did not write the story of the 

appearance of which she was a witness: 
nor did the disciples of Emmaus, nor any 
one of the Eleven. It is most surprising 
that Peter in his Epistle does not say. like 
St. Paul, kW He appeared to me." The ap- 

1 There are three, chapters ix., xxii., xxvi. 



208 THE DEATH AND 

pearance to Peter, the first day, was held 
in the primitive Church to be of capital 
importance ; but he himself does not say so. 
Nor does John say anything, as we have 
already observed. We have, then, only the 
word of Paul; but we have this word, 
and Paul is not a mere casual witness ; 
his word has more value than would have, 
if we possessed it, the testimony of a 
formerly demonized woman like Mary 
Magdalene, though written by her own 
hand. M. Renan made faith in the re- 
surrection to rest upon the testimony of 
Mary Magdalene, and this gave him 
ground for writing, " The enthusiasm of a 
hysterical woman has given a Risen God 
to the world." It is not solely to Mary 
Magdalene, it is also and above all to St. 
Paul, that we owe the Risen Christ. 

St. Paul's conviction was wholly based 
upon the perfectly clear recollection which 
he cherished of all that took place upon 
the road to Damascus. Now the conver- 
sion of Saul of Tarsus, transformed into 
St. Paul, is an evident historic fact, and 
Paul was convinced that on that day he 
had heard the Lord ; that he had been in 
communication with Jesus Christ; that 



RESURRECTION OF JESU.< CHRIST 209 

Jesus bad spoken to him, uttering words 
Iii the Hebrew tongue. Such is the 
testimony of tl, I apostle, and such 

were the motives for bis belief in thi . 
urrection of Jesus. 

Let as study more closely this testimony 
of St. Paul. Like all the Jews, he believed 
in the possibility of a resurrection. The 
Jews did not clearly hold the doctrine 
of the Immortality of the soul, according 
to which death is deliverance from the 
body which fetters the spiritual part of 
one's being; without which the spirit can 
live, and indeed without which it is more 
happily circumstanced. The Jews under- 
stood Little or nothing of this doctrine, 
according to which man is composed of 
two more or less inimical substances. In 
their view the world was to be trans- 
formed, tin 4 death of the body done away 
with, and the kingdom of God thus Bet up. 

St. Paul had been brought up in these 

ideas ; he not only admitted a future res- 
urrection, hut believed that partial or 
individual resurrections took place now 
and again. He found it in no sense "in- 
credible that God should raise the dead." 1 

1 Acts xxvi. 8. 
14 



210 THE DEATH AND 

Thus belief in the resurrection of a dead 
man met in his mind (and for that matter, 
in the mind of any one of his time) no 
such objection as it would everywhere 
meet at the present day ; it was a miracle, 
but at that period miracles occurred every 
day. 

St. Paul wrote, " If the dead rise not, 
Jesus Christ is not risen ; and if Jesus 
Christ is not risen, your faith is vain." l 
He takes his stand, then, on the fact that 
there are dead men who arise from the 
dead. That has happened. In Paul's 
view Jesus is not the only risen one, and 
he did not arise simply because he is the 
Son of God, the Messiah : he arose be- 
cause there are dead who rise, Jesus 
among others, and like the others. 

A general resurrection was expected. 
It was a widely held Pharisaic doctrine, 
and Paul was a Pharisee. At the Palin- 
genesis all the dead would rise. And the 
Palingenesis was imminent; it was there- 
fore perfectly simple and natural that 
even at that present time the bodies of 
some of the saints should be resuscitated. 
They were the precursors, the heralds 

1 1 Cor. xv. 13, 14, 17, etc. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CIIRIST 211 

of the great renovation, the catastrophe 
which would make all things new, the 
eternal (keam of man. 

How did Paul picture to himself the 
Risen Jesus? He believed that he had 
had an exterior vision, but it had onlv 
stunned him; he had, however, heard a 
voice, and at the same time he had had 
an interior vision, a drama had taken 
place in his soul. He was convinced 
that Jesus had really appeared to him. 
But it w;is not the material body of Jesus 
of Nazareth that had been shown him; 
God had revealed Jesus Christ "in him.'' 
He says this in the most explicit manner 
and without opening a possibility of at- 
tributing another meaning to the term of 
which he makes use. 1 In this regard 
Paul had the true fa it 1 1 in the resur- 
rection, as we shall presently set it forth. 

He tells clearly how he pictured to 
himself the Risen Jesus. 2 In his mind 
the future resurrection of the dead and 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ are iden- 
tical. But the future final resurrection 

1 Gal. i. 15. It pleased God to reveal his Son in me 
(rhv vibv aurov eV ifioi). 

2 1 Cor. xv. 1-58, and especially 35 ff. But it is 
necessary to read the entire chapter. 



212 THE DEATH AND 

will not be that of the body that was put 
into the ground, any more than the ear 
of wheat is the very seed that was sown. 
That seed is dead, it has decayed in the 
ground and disappeared. The resurrec- 
tion will be the birth of a new body, 
superior to the organism that formerly 
lived, and very different from it ; it will 
come forth from it, will be born of it, as 
the plant is born of the seed. 

Thus is it with Jesus : he arose on the 
third day, but it was not the flesh that 
formerly lived that returned to life ; it 
was a spiritual and celestial body coming 
forth from the material and earthly body, 
which died upon the cross. 

Paul very distinctly denies that the 
Risen Jesus had the same body as the 
Crucified Jesus. His resurrection body 
has neither flesh nor blood; it is incor- 
ruptible. " Flesh and blood cannot inherit 
the kingdom of God." 1 Paul knows noth- 
ing of a Risen One eating and drinking; 
he no longer knows Christ " according to 
the flesh," 2 nor does he know anything 
of the guard stationed at the tomb by 
the Jews. He belongs neither to the 

1 1 Cor. xv. 50. 2 2 Cor. v. 16. 



' RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 213 

Jerusalemite nor to the Galilean tradi- 
tion. He wrote before tradition had been 
formed ; he is earlier than any tradition. 

Furthermore, as lie puts the appearance 
to himself upon the same rank as those 
to the Twelve, he knows nothing of an 
ascension on the fortieth day, putting an 
end to the appearances, after which there 
were none, because, materially speaking, 
Jesus had returned into heaven. In St. 
Paul's idea the appearances were not dis- 
continued at the end of forty days, for 
there had been one much later, and, as 
has been observed, he nowhere says that 
others may not occur. 

In liis mind the body of the Risen 
Christ was made of the substance of his 
7TV€vpa; it is in no respect material, and 
the only word which expresses the resur- 
rection is c5</>#77 (he appeared, he was 
seen). There was not then, in St. Paul's 
mind, a continuation of Jesus' earthly 
life, interrupted for thirty-six hours, then 
resumed, and ending on the fortieth day. 
No, the earthly life of Jesus ended, in the 
apostle's view, upon the cross ; and the 
second life began on the third day, 
the life of the " glorified " Christ, which 



214 THE DEATH AND 

will never be modified nor interrupted by 
anything which is eternal. " Christ being 
risen from the dead dieth no more." 1 

Such is St. Paul's belief, and such is 
the earliest, the oldest, the authentic form 
of belief in the resurrection, — that ac- 
cepted by the apostle. 

St. Paul's statements aid us in choos- 
ing between the two Gospel traditions of 
which we have spoken above ; for it is 
certain that between these two traditions 
we must make a choice. I appeal to the 
good faith of my readers. There is no 
middle ground; either the Risen Jesus 
had the body which had been alive and 
had died upon the cross, or he had the 
glorified body of which St. Paul speaks. 

Very well ; of the two traditions, that 
which gives to Jesus the very body of 
his earthly life, which makes the life of 
the Risen Lord a sort of forty-day supple- 
ment of his ministry, closing it by the 
material ascension of his physical organ- 
ism, rising up to the abode of God, which 
is above us in the blue sky ; and that 
which makes of the resurrection of Jesus 
a series of appearances, indeterminate in 

1 Rom. vi. 9. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 215 

duration and having no material aspect, 
though entirely real, and, as we say, ob- 
jective, it is certainly the latter which 
we must choose ; and St. Paul aids us to 
cl loose ; so to speak, he makes the choice 
for us. To the impartial historian, in 
fact, Paul's doctrine is the true one. It 
is the oldest, and the only one which 
forms a part of a direct and authentic 
testimony, and it was after the apostle's 
time that tradition gave to JesUfl a material 
and tangible body. 

And now, what are the facts gained for 
history ? 

The first La this : the life of Jesus had 
come to a close. He was no longer in the 
world. His reappearances, whatever may 
have been their nature, were brief, rapid, 
fleeting interviews, which show a supra- 
terrestrial existence beyond the tomb. 

2. The tomb was empty on the morning 
of the third day. 

3. It was from this third day forward 
that Jesus appeared. 1 There were appear- 

1 The appearances began on the third day ; hut some 
persons had another opinion, and believed that Jesus 
remained in the tomb three full days. We fiud in the 
Gospels some traces of this belief (Matt. xii. 40, John 



216 THE DEATH AND 

ances during a period of undetermined 
length, and they took place where Jesus 
had lived, in Judea and Galilee. Some 
saw him in Judea, others in Galilee. He 
appeared only to those who knew that the 
tomb was empty ; but beyond this com- 
mon starting-point each tradition devel- 
oped independently of the other. These 
appearances were special to those for 
whom they were designed ; they alone 
were aware of them. 

4. The body of the Risen Lord was 
a spiritual body, according to the expres- 
sion of St. Paul. Later it was found hard 
to reconcile the two traditions ; one was 
laid over the other, and they were not 
to be reconciled. Between the narratives 
according to which the body of the Risen 
Lord was a material organism which could 
partake of food, which bore the print of 
the nails, which could be touched, and the 
narratives according to which it was in- 
stantaneously transported from place to 
place, passed through closed doors, and 

ii. 19, Mark ix. 31, according to the oldest and most 
authoritative text). The opinion which prevailed, that 
of St. Paul, placed the resurrection on the third day, 
that is, Sunday (Luke ix. 22, xxiv. 21). 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 217 

was impalpable, there is an irreconcilable 
contradiction. To admit this contradiction 
is for every reader of the Gospel narratives 
a duty of the most elementary good faith. 

5. Paul believed in the resurrection, 
not only because it was affirmed by Hie 
oilier apostles, but beeausr he WBS per- 
suaded that Jesus had appeared to him 
and spoken to him. 

6. We may admit as historically pi 

the development of the primitive tradi- 
tion, iu the Benae of an increasing mate- 
rialization of the idea of the nature of 
the body of the Risen Lord. 

Such arc the historic conclusions to 
which the impartial study of the various 
narratives infallibly Leads. 



218 THE DEATH AND 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RESURRECTION 

ET us now attempt to perceive what 
we ought to understand by the Re- 
surrection of Jesus Christ. 

The disciples did see appearances. The 
Being which they saw had a body. But 
this body was immaterial ; this is affirmed 
by St. Paul. St. Paul's affirmation is 
confirmed by the pains taken by the Evan- 
gelists to convince their readers that the 
body of the Risen Lord was material. 
Several features of the accounts show, 
indeed, that it was immaterial and in- 
tangible. The Evangelists undoubtedly 
believed in a tangible reality ; but the 
first idea of the witnesses was that they 
had before them a spirit, l and this idea 
prevailed for a very long time. Clement 
of Alexandria relates that, according to a 
tradition still accepted in his time, St. 
1 Luke xxiv. 37. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 219 

John thrust his hand into the body of 
Jesus, and it passed through it without 
difficulty. 1 According to Jerome 2 the 
Gospel of the Nazarenes related that Jesus 
appeared to Peter and the other apostles, 
after having appeared to James, and said 
to them, " Touch me, and assure your- 
selves that I am not a dcemonium incor- 
porate"' (an incorporeal spirit). 

The appearance was of Jesus, but he 
was not recognized j Mary Magdalene, the 
disciples of Emmaus, the apostles in 
(Jalilee, 3 were not at the first moment 
aware that it was Jesus who stood before 
them. The statement made, based upon 
the accounts of those win. narrated the ap- 
pearances, is that they did not at once 
know who was there. It was not until 
after a certain time that they recognized 
Jesus. 

The moment of recognition was usually 
at a meal-time (the disciples of Em- 
maus, the meal when Jesus ate fish and 
honeycomb, the dinner of John xxi.). This 
idea certainly grew out of the fact that 
one of the memories most profoundly 

1 Adumbrat. ad 1 John i. 1. 2 De vir ill. 2. 

8 John xxi. 



220 THE DEATH AND 

graven upon the hearts of the disciples 1 
was that of the meals they had been used 
to take with their Master, and especially 
the moment of the breaking of bread and 
the giving of thanks. 

It had always been a blessed hour, that 
meal- time of the little community, the 
little spiritual family, when they all sat 
around the same table, when they sang 
the old psalms, when they dipped into the 
same dish and drank from the same cup ; 
therefore from the earliest days of the 
primitive Church the fraternal repasts so 
much enjoyed by the Jews were in great 
honor. 

It happened further that as soon as 
they recognized Jesus he disappeared ; 
that the moment when the vision vanished 
was precisely that in which some one 
said, " It is he ! " So long as the vision 
lasted, either they knew not who it was, 2 
or they were asking one another if it was 
he, — yes or no. 3 

From these facts it results with the 
strongest evidence that there is not the 

1 We have already had occasion to make this remark ; 
see above, p. 118. 

2 Luke xxiv. 13-35. 3 j h n xxi. 12. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 221 

least relation between the resurrection of 
Jesus and other resurrections narrated in 
the Bible ; for example, that of Lazarus. 
According to the text the resurrection of 
Lazarus was the return to physical and 
organic life of a coipse in which decom- 
position had already begun. The body 
of Lazarafl came to life again. Lazarus 
resumed the existence of a few days pre- 
vious, in his house, with his Bisters ; began 
again to feed his body and to live the daily 
material life, precisely as if his illness, 
instead uf ending in death, had ended in 
recovery. His organism resumed all its 
physiological functions, and at a later 
time Lazarus died a second time, and this 
time, not to live again. If the laws of 
Franoe had been operative in Judea, the 
risen Lazarus might have demanded the 
annulling of his act of decease. 

It is entirely otherwise with the Risen 
Christ, of whom Paul said, kt He dieth no 
more;" 1 and with the documents which 
we possess it is absolutely impossible to 
establish any likeness between the return 
of Lazarus to life and the return of Jesus 
Christ to life. 

1 Rom. vi. 9. 



222 THE DEATH AND 

We have now arrived at the following 
historic certainties : — 

1. There were appearances of Jesus, 
sometimes uncertain and unrecognizable, 
and always followed by disappearances. 

2. He had a body called "glorified" 
or " spiritual ; " and we are absolutely 
ignorant of what that is, — we only know 
that it is not the earthly body. 

3. The Risen Chiist dies no more ; 
he has then no organic life, and his 
body performs no physiological function 
whatever. 

4. God revealed his Son in St. Paul. 
In the apostle's experience, therefore, to 
the exterior vision which dazzled his sight 
there was a corresponding inner revelation 
of which his soul was the theatre. 

5. None of Jesus' adversaries saw him 
after his death; his disciples alone saw 
him. 

6. The succession of the appearances 
and their number cannot be perfectly 
established. 

Certain details remain to be elucidated ; 
thus, the contradictions in the narratives, 
speaking sometimes of a material body, 
sometimes of an immaterial body, are in 



REBURRECTION OF JE8U8 CHRIST 223 

the highest degree natural. The apostles 
took divers methods of explaining a fact 
which in itself was certain. Their faith 
expressed itself in images: each had his 
own, and each believed that this figure 
corresponded with a reality. But as they 
Contradict one another we ought not to 
seek to restore them to unity. 

One says, the Risen Lord had an or- 
iie body Which parlook of food. An- 
other says, a spiritual body which passed 
through closed doors: and sometimes the 
.same writer says both. 

One of them believes that the resur- 
rection and ascension took place the same 
day, and that both were one identical 
act ; according to this evangelist, with 
JesilS to arise from tin 4 dead was to as- 
cend into heaven. Another says, the two 
acta were separated by an interval of forty 
days. One said, the Lord is the Spirit; 1 
the other, he has a body which bears the 
mark of the nails. We have shown that 
there are several traditions, that is, several 
explanations, and nothing is so pitiful as 
the effects of certain conservatives to 
harmonize all these differences, to bring 

1 2 Cor. iii. 17. 



224 THE DEATH AND 

them all into unity. While denying ple- 
nary inspiration, they put all these nar- 
ratives in the same rank ; all are true, 
authentic, infallible, and therefore they 
harmonize. We believe that we show 
more respect for the Scriptures in not 
trying to bring into agreement things that 
do not agree, and in not giving forced 
harmonizations. It is hard to believe 
how many petty manipulations, forced 
texts, one-sided explanations, we find 
among the conservatives ; arguments of 
which in the secret of their souls they 
cannot but feel the weakness and noth- 
ingness, and which, taken all in all, are 
miserable failures. 

But if we can sum up all the contra- 
dictions in the narratives, and show how 
very natural they are, there nevertheless 
remain many insoluble questions ; for ex- 
ample, How were the appearances pro- 
duced? When did they cease? Under 
what influences? How did belief in the 
ascension into heaven grow up? We do 
not know. 

What is certain is that the entire life of 
Jesus is to be explained only by an inter- 
vention of God. It is a miracle, if by 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 225 

that we understand, not an impossible 
abrogation of the laws of nature, but a 
creative act of the sovereign God, un- 
explained and still inexplicable. It is a 
miracle of that sort (and this is the only 
sort of miracle that is possible, and in 
consequence authentic), it is, we say, a 
miracle of that sort which is hidden in the 
mystery of his birth; It is another of this 
same kind which is hidden in the mys- 
tery of his resurrection. Miracles of this 
kind an- not to be observed by scientific 
methods, and (he disciples describe them 
as they can, by poetic images and popular 

symbols, to which, according to the ideas 
of their time, they give a historic reality; 
but the fact itself, the miraculous fact, 
subsists behind figurative explanations 

and concrete symbols. 

This one thing remains certain, — the 
life beyond the tomb is not at all a part 
of the earthly life: it is a superior exist- 
ence, truly supernatural. Its appearances 
are always sudden, and last only a brief 
time, even in the most realistic traditions. 
The Risen Lord did not live in continu- 
ous and normal relations with the world 
in which he had formerly lived. 



226 THE DEATH AND 

Among the questions which remain in- 
soluble is this : What became of the body 
of the Crucified Jesus ? 

On the one hand, the Risen Jesus had 
not the same body as during his earthly life ; 
and on the other hand, his earthly body, 
his corpse, was not in the tomb on the 
third day. What became of the body of 
the Crucified One? 

To answer this question is impossible 
for everyone. It is impossible for those 
who deny the resurrection ; it is not less 
so for those who believe that there were 
visions of a glorified body; it is not 
less so for those who, contrary to the asser- 
tion of St. Paul, affirm a return to life 
of the physical organism of Jesus; for 
that organism, the body which ate, walked, 
slept, in fact lived the earthly life, be- 
ginning again as that of the risen Lazarus 
did, did not, as he did, die a second 
time, to be buried again. We know very 
well what became of the body of Lazarus 
after his second death — it was buried ; 
but what became of that of Jesus ? 

Shall we be told, " It was that which 
went up into heaven on Ascension Day " ? 
No, we shall not be told so, because that 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 227 

cannot have been a truly material body 
which went up into heaven ; it was not 
" flesh and blood," it was a " glorified " 
body, as we say. And thus, to the ques- 
tions, " What became of the crucified body ? 
Where was it when the tomb was found 
empty on the morning of the third day? " 
— a reply is as impossible for the most 
conservative believers as for unbelievers, 
for the partisans as for the opponents of 
the resurrection. 

It does not suffice to say, the material 
body was transformed into a spiritual body; 
for this has no meaning. Matter is mat- 
tor, and remains matter. Everything is 
changed, as we well know, but nothing is 
lost, and matter can only be transformed 
into matter. 

No satisfactory solution has therefore 
been found by any one. 1 

1 Some one will perhaps reply : " The material body 
could be transformed into a spiritual body, for nothing 
is impossible with God; and bcsidos, who shall say 
what is matter and what is spirit ? Why could not the 
material body, the corpse of Jesns of Nazareth, have 
become the glorified body of the eternal Christ ? " 
Agreed : it might have so become. To the supposition 
of this abstract possibility and this appeal to the al- 
mighty power of God it is evident that we have no 
reply to make. 



228 THE DEATH AND 

The most widely differing conjectures 
have been offered to explain the disappear- 
ance of the body. It has been asked — 
singular conjecture — if the Sanhedrin 
might not have taken measures to conceal 
the body of Jesus. Although dead, this 
man still distressed them. His tomb, as 
we have shown, 1 might become a place of 
pilgrimage. People would certainly visit 
it, thought Annas and Caiaphas. Some 
women had already spoken of coming back 
to embalm the body. The disciples would 
take advantage of this well-known and 
respected sepulchre to excite and promote 
an uprising of the people. It was neces- 
sary, then, in the minds of these men that 
Jesus should be entirely done away with. 
Even his death did not satisfy them ; they 
desired the destruction of his body, its 
total extinction. 

Therefore the Sanhedrin made away 
with his body on Saturday night, as soon 
as the Sabbath was ended, and had it car- 
ried somewhere else, hidden, burned, per- 
haps, saying, We must have done even 
with his corpse. They secured the aid of 
the Roman soldiers who were guarding 
1 See above, p. 182 f. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 229 

the tomb, paying them money. Hence the 
story related by Matthew, of paying 
the soldiers to say nothing. Later, when 
the apostles declared that the resurrection 
had taken place, the Sanhedrin could not 
contradict it, nor offer to produce the 
corpse ; they were therefore silent, because 
otherwise it would have been necessary to 
confess what they had done. According 
to a passage in Tertullian, 1 certain Jews 
said that the gardener had made away with 
the body, because he feared that the throng 
of comers and goers would injure his 
vegetables. They admitted then that the 
body might have been carried away by 
others than the apostles. 

The hiding of the body by the Sanhedrin 
is certainly not beyond the limits of possi- 
bility, but I beg the reader to remark 
that this possibility is entirely abstract. 
Nothing can be cited to support it ; not an 
act, not a text, not an allusion, however 
fleeting, appears to give a degree of value 
to this hypothesis. It is gratuitous in the 
strongest sense of the word. More than 
that, it is in the highest degree improbable ; 

1 De Spectaculis. 



230 THE DEATH AND 

for it would have been singularly mala- 
droit of the high priest to take the trouble, 
of his own motion, to furnish the apostles 
a reason for believing in the resurrec- 
tion. And to conclude, as we shall 
show in the following pages, it is im- 
possible that the disappearance of Jesus' 
body in such a manner, even if it took 
place, should explain the belief in the 
resurrection. 

Besides, it is possible to imagine such 
^an absurdity as old Annas becoming the 
true founder of Christianity. We should 
in that case owe him very abundant 
thanks. By putting Jesus to death by 
cravenly demanding that Pilate should 
crucify him, he had already given to the 
world a God dying for its sins and expi- 
ating them upon the cross ; now he does 
better still ; by effecting the disappearance 
of the bod}^, by letting loose his rage upon 
the sorrowful Man of Nazareth, the hatred 
of this unscrupulous priest has given to 
the world a Risen God! Jesus is there- 
fore only one of our brothers in suffering, 
and the despairing cry of Mary Magdalene 
will remain through all the centuries 
the expression of the truth : " They have 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 231 

taken away my Lord, and I know not 
where they have laid him ! " 

No ; the wonderful results which fol- 
lowed the crucifixion are to be explained 
only by actual appearances of the Cruci- 
fied One ; by a real resurrection, therefore. 
And as to the disappearance of the body, 
we can easily imagine that St. Paul must 
have considered this question as entirely 
idle. No doubt he knew that the tomb 
had been found empty on the morning of 
the third day, and he believed that the 
incorruptible body of Jesus was derived 
from his corruptible body as the plant 
is derived from some sort of seed; but 
he was little concerned with the material 
and earthly body of Jesus. It had been 
precisely nothing other than a seed, and 
to those who might have asked him what 
had become of it he would have re- 
plied, " Unthinking man ! that which thou 
sowest takes not on life unless it first 
die! Jesus the Christ according to the 
flesh died and was buried; but I know 
not the Christ according to the flesh ; 
and the third day the Christ according 
to the Spirit arose from the dead. The 



232 THE DEATH AND 

carnal body died and the spiritual body 
took on life." Such was, without any 
doubt, the doctrine of St. Paul; such is 
also our own, and such is the truth about 
the resurrection. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 233 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE CERTAINTY OF THE RESURRECTION 

\^/E are here at the very heart of the 
subject, and both impartiality and 
scientific probity oblige us to sound it to 
the bottom. 

For the mere historian the actual state 
of the question is this : On the third day 
after the death of Jesus and during the 
following days, for a space of about six 
weeks, something happened which can- 
not be attributed to the imposture of the 
disciples ; namely, a certain number of 
persons saw Jesus Christ, and reported 
sayings of his. Furthermore, St. Paul, in 
an undoubted letter, states that he also 
saw and heard him some time, perhaps 
several years, later. 

Are we authorized by the mental state 
of those who had these visions to deem 
them purely ecstatic ? The disappearance 



234 THE DEATH AND 

of the body was no doubt the initial fact, 
the generative incident, of the belief in 
a return of the Crucified Lord to life ; but 
does its disappearance suffice to account 
for the visions ? 

Could not indeed the apostles and the 
women, seeing the tomb empty, have imag- 
ined the return of Jesus to life, persuaded 
themselves that Jesus was risen, and then 
had visions created by their imagination ? 
To this question we may reply that not 
one of the disciples expected Jesus to 
return to life. Their despair, their desire 
to embalm the body, the stone that they 
rolled to the entrance of the cave, are 
sufficient proofs of this. 

But does this answer suffice? Let us 
transport ourselves to the first century ; 
let us picture to ourselves not men of 
to-day, but Jews of that time, and these 
Jews disciples of Jesus, standing before 
their Master's empty tomb. Is it not 
natural that the thought should take pos- 
session of their hearts, especially since it 
was Jesus that was dead, "Perhaps his 
body is come to life again!" For we 
must not forget with what facility people 
of those times welcomed the report of a 



RESURRECTION OF JUS US CHRIST 235 

resurrection. The return of a corpse to 
life, even of a corpse in process of decom- 
position, seemed a very possible thing. 
In our days, to the report of such an 
event, every one, no matter who, would 
unquestionably oppose an immediate ne- 
gation, without asking for proof, or even 
consenting to an attempt to bring proof. 
Such things do not happen; the refusal 
to believe in such a thing in our epoch is 
imperative, but formerly it was not so. 
Therefore when tin- rumor of the resur- 
rection of Jesus began to be spread 
abroad, it at once met persons who put 
faith in it. A few indeed said, it is a 

story; but they did not Long say so, they 

only asked to be allowed to believe it. 
No doubt even then a resurrection was 

a very extraordinary miraele, the most 
extraordinary of all miracles, but it was 
in no sense impossible. Sheol was less 
rigorously closed for the Jews than the 
tomb is for us. In speaking of St. Paul 
and the Pharisaic beliefs of his time we 
said that the expectation of a general 
resurrection made men anticipate the 
time, in the case of certain great person- 
ages. People said, They are returned to 



236 THE DEATH AND 

life in advance, before the great day. 
Antipas said of Jesus Christ, "It is the 
Baptist arisen from the dead." 1 The 
people had taken Jesus to be "Jeremiah 
or one of the prophets " returned to life. 2 
Certain saints were raised from the dead 
at the death of Jesus. 8 The Apocalypse 
speaks of the resurrection of the witnesses 
of Jesus. 4 A resurrection from the dead 
was then always possible ; and if it is 
pointed out that we have not for the first 
day a single eye-witness, that John him- 
self (assuming that it was the Apostle 
John who wrote the Fourth Gospel with 
his own hand) saw nothing but the empty 
tomb, was this sight not enough to lead 
some one, no matter who, who had the 
idea of a resurrection, to at once admit it 
as possible, and very soon after, as cer- 
tain ? And as for this first idea, was not 
the view of the empty tomb enough to 
suggest it? 

Let us add to this that the religious 
necessity of a resurrection was impera- 
tive ; he must have risen again. God was 
bound to give this proof of the Messiah- 

1 Mark vi. 14. 2 Matt. xvi. 14. 

8 Matt, xxvii. 52. 4 Rev. xi. 3-12. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 237 

ship of Jesus. We have said that at this 
epoch a miracle was the sign of a direct 
mission. The apologetic proof drawn 
from miracles has no proving force in our 
day, but it had enormous force in the 
first century. 1 Everything was proved by 
miracles. Paul reminds the Corinthians 
that to prove to them that lie was indeed 
an apostle, he had performed miracles 
among them, and had never wearied of 
performing them, renewing this demon- 
stration with untiring kindness and pa- 
tience. 2 Therefore that God should raise 
up Jesus and give this proof of his Mes- 
siahship was in the order of things. 

Finally, is not the testimony of Paul 
himself subject to caution ? Did not Paul 
also have an ecstatic vision on the road 
to Damascus? Was he not subject to 
ecstasies? Might not an ecstasy also ex- 
plain the over-excitement of Mary Mag- 
dalene after the prostration of those first 
days, of Peter, of all the others, affected 
by the contagion ? What one saw and 
heard they would all very soon see and 

i 1 Cor. i. 22, ii. 4, 5 ; 2 Cor. xii. 12; 1 Thess. i. 5 ; 
2 Thess. ii. 9 ; Gal. iii. 5 ; Rom. xv. 18, 19. 
2 2 Cor. xii. 12, 13. 



238 THE DEATH AND 

hear. Does not the miracle of Pentecost 
make evident that they were ecstatics ? 
Cases of this kind are known to history. 
After the unjust martyrdom of Savona- 
rola, after the assassination of Thomas 
a Becket, their disciples could not believe 
them to be forever departed, could not 
resign themselves to their overthrow, ex- 
pected to see them again in life. 

Observations of this sort are certainly 
very interesting, and such analogies as 
these are most alluring. Notwithstanding 
which, we believe that the scrupulous and 
impartial historian requires other demon- 
strations than mere curious resemblances 
before accepting such a thing. He must 
take into consideration all the facts. Now 
we have these ascertained facts. The 
vision of Paul on the road to Damascus 
is expressly distinguished by himself from 
his moments of ecstasy, and from this 
vision he emerged a Christian; that is 
to say, changed, transformed, converted. 
Let the exterior fact which took place on 
the road to Damascus be explained by 
ecstasy, by bewilderment, by a lightning 
stroke, we must nevertheless admit the 
interior fact which took place in the soul 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 239 

of St. Paul. Saul was thrown to the 
ground a Pharisee, and uprose a Christian, 
because "it pleased God to reveal his 
Son in him." J We may perhaps blot out 
other facts of history ; but what fact is 
more authentic than the conversion of St. 
Paul ? The impartial, just, unprejudiced 
critic will never blot out this fact. 

And this story of Paul is only a repro- 
duction (by one detail) of the great fact 
that Christianity was born at that mo- 
ment. The Christian Church was born 
of the certitude of the Resurrection. It 
is the foundation on which the apostles 
built. Thomas a Becket and Savonarola 
brought no new idea into the world when 
they reappeared to their disciples. Jesus, 
when he reappeared, brought the Church 
into the world ; his cause has triumphed 
because he has arisen from the dead. 
Otherwise it would behoove us to say, 
His cause triumphed because the Sanhe- 
drin stole away his body. 

To him who believes that God works 

in history the resurrection of Jesus is an 

indisputable fact. Let us compare the 

first Good Friday on the one side and 

i Gal. i. 15. 



240 THE DEATH AND 

the preaching of the first Pentecost on 
the other ; what took place between those 
two days ? The former is marked by a de- 
feat which seems entirely final ; the latter 
is the magnificent dawn of the history of 
the Church. Between the two something 
certainly transpired which transformed the 
apostles ; we call this event the Resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ. 1 

A fraud on the part of the disciples is 
as absurd a supposition as the mere vision 
of a phantom created by their own imag- 
inations is impossible. 

The Resurrection did take place. It 
brought about the birth of a new world. 
Jesus is alive ; he is alive indeed ; he will 
die no more. This brilliant sun still en- 
lightens the world ; the third day after 
the crucifixion a new horizon was un- 
folded, a new world was begun. 

God has intervened to give us in the 
course of human generations him whose 
pure and holy life would be inexplicable 
without this intervention. He has like- 
wise intervened by a sovereign act to 

i We do not speak of the theory of a syncope, followed 
by apparent death, occurring during the crucifixion; 
it has no value whatever. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 241 

give us a Risen Christ, without whom 
the development of Christianity in history 
would certainly not have occurred. 

All trace of the ignominy of Good 
Friday has disappeared ; and not only has 
it disappeared, but ignominy itself has 
been changed into glory, defeat into vic- 
tory, and the salvation of the world has 
been wrought by the cross. 

Let it not be forgotten the Christian con- 
sciousness was then born ; it is not simply 
that the disciples believed in the Resur- 
rection, — the Resurrection transformed 
them. It cannot be said they thought 
they saw Jesus but were mistaken, for the 
transformation which took place in them 
cannot be denied, and the transformation 
consists in this : it is no more they who 
live, but Jesus Christ who lives in them. 1 

To use the language of the schools, the 
Resurrection of Jesus was at once objective 
and subjective. Objective, for " it pleased 
God " to do it : it was not the apostles 
who created the vision of the Risen Lord, 
it was God who raised his Son. Subjec- 
tive, because it was " in them," in his 
apostles, that it pleased God to reveal his 

1 Gal. ii. 20. 
16 



242 THE DEATH AND 

Risen Son. The passage, Galatians i. 15, 
is of inexorable clearness in this respect. 

The Resurrection of Jesus in the souls 
of his apostles is the certain proof of his 
Resurrection in history. 

The Resurrection of Jesus was a creative 
act of the living God, of the Father in 
whom he had believed without a shadow 
of wavering all his days, and into whose 
hands, in breathing out his last breath, he 
had committed his spirit. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 243 



CHAPTER XV 

FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION 

\\ 7E have not in the least undertaken 
in the preceding chapters, and in 
the long discussions upon which we have 
entered weighing the pros and cons, to 
prove the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
historically, to establish by trustworthy 
Statements the miracle of the return of 
Jesus to life. If this had been our design 
it would have hern very chimerical, and 
we should never have succeeded in it. 

A miracle is not to he demonstrated ; it 
does not even vouch for its own miraculous 
character. History can vouch for onty the 
facts by which the miracle was manifested. 
When it goes back to its causes it cannot 
grasp them; it remains face to face with 
manifestations that are not to be explained. 

Why? because this intangible cause of 
miracle, if miracle there is, can be only 



244 THE DEATH AND 

its first cause, and the first cause never 
shows itself to us. To the mere man of 
learning God remains a hidden God. He 
may verify phenomena, he may discover 
facts ; if he goes back to their causes, he 
finds an interwoven chain of second causes. 
The chain is endless, and the first cause 
never appears. No one can ever say, "I 
have seen God; he appeared to my eyes," 
or "He is proved to my reason." The 
well-known utterance of Laplace, declar- 
ing that in order to describe the celestial 
mechanism there was no need of the 
hypothesis of God, is not in the least an 
atheistic proposition. The direct action 
of God is the supernatural. The believer 
testifies to the supernatural, but he testi- 
fies to it by faith and not by sight. If he 
prays God to heal a sick person, and the 
sick person gets well, he will say that God 
healed him, that his prayer has been an- 
swered, and he will call this answer an act 
of God, a miracle; but the learned man 
will perhaps discover the second cause of 
the recovery, will find it in such or such a 
potent medicament, administered by a 
clever physician at the opportune moment. 
The discoveries of the learned man do not 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 245 

rob him of his faith. They simply tell 
him what means God is using to answer 
his prayer and heal the sick person; and 
whether or not he knows how God works, 
whether or not he divines the secret of 
God, he believes neither more nor less that 
God was there and that lie was working. 
For him, God is not an unknown God. 

It follows that the supernatural is not 
to be demonstrated; it is affirmed by faith. 
The resurrection of Jesus is not to be 
explained, bul that matters little; if it 
eould be explained it would be none the 
less a miracle to the Christian, and the 
greatest of miracles. 

The historian, who speaks only as a 
learned man and not as a believer, asks 
what took place on the third day. The 
apostles saw Jesus Christ; he appeared to 
them. Was he then truly arisen from the 
dead ? To this question the historian con- 
tines himself to saying, I do not know; I 
<\o not understand; the data for solving 
the problem are wanting. Renan one day 
declared that for him to admit a miracle 
it would suffice that it was sufficiently 
attested. Let a body of learned men, 
physicians, members of the Institute, attest 



246 THE DEATH AND 

a resurrection from the dead, and it must 
be admitted, said Renan. Well, no; even 
that would not suffice ; Renan is mistaken 
when he says that whenever a commission 
of the Institute shall speak, declaring that 
a resurrection has really taken place, we 
must admit that supernatural events take 
place. Never will one of our contempo- 
raries, learned or otherwise, admit a super- 
natural event. He will admit nothing 
more than an unexplained, but not super- 
natural, event. He will say, The expla- 
nation escapes me, but there is one. I am 
not in presence of a miracle. 

If the attempted explanations are erro- 
neous, untenable (fraud, illusion, lethargy, 
etc.), it is because the right one has not 
been found. But there is an explanation, 
and it is natural. As for the believer, he 
utters the word miracle, and says God was 
there. He says it by faith and not by 
knowledge ; by moral, not by sensible evi- 
dence. For him the apostles really saw 
and heard their Master ; he really appeared 
to them. 

There is then proof of the resurrection 
of Jesus, the religious proof; it is the 
most precious of all, or rather it is the 



INSURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 247 

only one that is worth anything, and it 
has the double advantage of being within 
the reach of the most humble, and of being 
irrefutable. 

The true believer has no need of a 
demonstration of the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ by historic considerations, which 
are always refutable; he knows with an 
inward certainty that his Saviour has 
vanquished death, and he says, "The 
Lord is risen indeed." 1 The believer who 
uses this language has faith in the Resur- 
rection, and lie alone lias this faith. 
Others may believe it: he has faith. Now 
our may believe in the resurrection and 
not he a Christian. One may find the 

demonstration of the historic fact to be 
sufficient and not be a ( 'hristian ; and con- 
trariwise, one may not be able to resolve 
a. single one of the questions raised by the 
Resurrection, may not be ahle to say what 
became of the body, not be ahle to say in 
what consisted the return of the Crucified 
One to lite, nineteen hundred years ago, 
the third day after he was placed in the 
tomb; in a word, one may not be able to 
meet the objections to the resurrection, 

1 Luke xxiv. 34. 



248 THE DEATH AND 

and yet be a Christian, because he has 
faith in the resurrection of Jesus. 

For he alone is a Christian who has faith 
in the resurrection of Jesus. The true 
believer has experienced his Saviour's 
return to life ; he knows and he believes, 
and his faith no man can take away from 
him. 

Let us explain. 

To demonstrate the reality of the Cruci- 
fied Lord's return to life, to demonstrate 
that there is sufficient documentary evi- 
dence for the historic fact, is to demon- 
strate that a historic event one day took 
place; and to admit the authenticity of 
this event is a matter of science and not of 
faith. 1 

Historic belief has no religious value, 
and such a belief in this case is not the 
same thing as faith in the eternally living 
Jesus Christ. 

Religious faith, the faith that justifies 
and saves, cannot depend upon a historic 
fact which may be submitted to a scientific 

1 We refer to the remarkable words of M. Lachelier, 
cited in our second volume (p. 94). "An historic event, 
extraordinary or not, cannot be an object of faith, pre- 
cisely because it is historic, and by this fact is an object 
of knowledge." 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 249 

examination, which can be arrived at only 
by study, by the critical sense and the 
intelligence. The results of criticism are 
various and uncertain. As M. Lachelier 
has lately reminded us, U A historic event 
cannot be an object of faith, precisely 
because it is historic, and by this fact is 
an object of knowledge." What we have 
already asked, 1 What could they do who 
cannot study and who yet desire to be- 
lieve, — the laborer, the working-man, the 
man of no culture, —if, in order to have 
faith in the Risen Christ they were obliged 
to weigh arguments, discuss opinions, test 
proofs'/ What would happen then? Hav- 
ing a desire to believe in the resurrection 
and being unable to pursue the necessarv 
studies, an uncultured man would admit 
the historic fact, not because he has proved 
it (for he is incapable of the study neces- 
sary to prove it), but because he has need 
of it. Ih' decides in advance that it must 
have taken place. The resurrection of 
Jesus forces itself upon him a priori. 
Thus men create the facts of history 
before being taught by history that they 
have taken place. 

1 "Jesus Christ during his Ministry," p. 255, note. 



250 THE DEATH AND 

We have already directed attention to 
the strangeness of the fact that men thus 
decide what must have taken place. 

Concerning the resurrection of Jesus, if 
a verification of the historic fact is pos- 
sible, it is, in any case, a somewhat long 
process, and when it is completed it re- 
mains an intellectual belief. Even the 
"he appeared unto me" (kci/jloI w^Orf) of 
St. Paul, which comes so straight to us, 
is subject to criticism; for though the 
First Epistle to the Corinthians is cer- 
tainly from Paul, it is still necessary to 
prove its authenticity, and to this end to 
carry on scientific research. If, then, 
belief in the historic fact of the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus were necessary to a religious 
faith in the Christ who ever lives and 
reigns in his Church, it would be for 
learned men to decide whether or not 
Christians ought to believe in the resur- 
rection of Jesus. Believers would then 
be divided into two classes: first, the 
learned themselves, whose intellectual 
researches would lead them to believe; 
second, the immense multitude of the 
ignorant and unlearned, who would believe 
blindly on the affirmation of the learned. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 251 

But thanks be to God, things are not 
thus. Every Christian, the most humble 
with the most learned, may have personal 
experience of the life of his Saviour. 
This personal experience cannot depend 
upon historic research. Biblical criticism 
is taking away those supports which our 
fathers deemed indispensable; woe unto us 
if we think ourselves lost because we have 
been robbed of these poor crutches! We 
can walk alone because we are not alone; 
our Master is with us; he is truly arisen 
from the dead. 

From what precedes, it results that one 
may doubt the historic fact of the Resur- 
rection, that one may find even the witness 
of Paul insufficient; that with regard to a 
question of pure historic knowledge in the 
simple verification of a material fact, one 
may be of those who are inclined to say 
No, and still be a Christian, a true disciple 
of Jesus. Let us suppose a person who 
believes in Jesus Christ, who has faith in 
him, who calls him God manifest in the 
flesh, who has found in him his Saviour and 
believes in the redemption from his sins 
effected upon the cross, but who doubts 
the reality of the resurrection, — shall we 
say that this person is not a Christian ? 



252 THE DEATH AND 

We have said, let us suppose; but this 
supposition is a reality for a large number 
of the members of Christian churches. 
We are all of our own time; and in our 
time it is more difficult than it was in the 
time of St. Paul to admit the historic 
fact. 

Well, let us be reassured ; those who say- 
that Christianity stands or falls according 
as the Resurrection is received or rejected 
are certainly mistaken if they are speaking 
of the historic fact. We have just shown, 
and we cannot too much insist upon a 
truth so elementary, that the faith that 
saves does not depend upon scientific belief. 
Jesus himself clearly showed this when he 
did not condemn Thomas for asking to see 
in order to believe. After his example, 
let us not condemn those who doubt on 
this point, and who, notwithstanding, love 
Jesus and believe in him. One is not 
master of this sort of doubt, which bears 
upon facts of the past. To doubt a fact 
because one cannot honestly admit it, 
because material proof of it appears insuffi- 
cient, this is not religious incredulity. 1 

1 We appropriate here the remarkable consideration 
on this subject of Professor Eugene Menegoz. See 
Un doute consolant. Revue Chrrtienne, 1893. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 253 

He who thus doubts is not necessarily 
a man without faith; he is a man who 
does not give credence to a historic fact. 
The true doubter is he who will not turn 
from sin, will not humble himself and be 
converted ; he is the hardened sinner who 
is voluntarily hardened because he will 
not break with evil. 

We have shown how remarkable and 
convincing is St. Paul's "he appeared 
unto me " Qca^ol co(/>#t/); for if there is 
any trustworthy witness he certainly is 
one, and the joyful and confident certainty 
of Paul explains his whole life. Jesus is 
alive; this is the word that illumines a 
great number of his sayings; "I live, yet 
not I, but Christ liveth in me." 1 "To 
live is Christ." 2 "Christ being arisen 
dieth no more.'' 3 "Have I not seen the 
Lord," 4 etc. 

But, finally, some one may say, That is 
St. Paul, it is not I. St. Paul's certainty 
does not fully satisfy me. I would be 
able myself to say "I have seen him," and 
to add, "I have touched him." 

Let us observe that those who make 

1 Gal. ii. 20. 2 Phil. i. 21. 

8 Rom. vi. 9. 4 1 Cor. ix. 1. 



254 THE DEATH AND 

such demands are most often very unfor- 
tunate. They would be very glad, they 
would prefer, not to make them; they 
suffer in being obliged to ask to see and 
touch; they suffer in not being entirely 
sure that Paul was not mistaken! 

We know that there are those who 
blame such persons ; there are more fortu- 
nate believers who have not these needs, 
to whom the resurrection of Jesus appears 
perfectly simple, and who condemn those 
who doubt, accusing them as if they were 
guilty sinners. 

They are certainly in error. We strongly 
desire to convince our readers that this is 
not a question of historic proof. Some 
have an intellectual belief of a fact; the 
proofs given for it are for them convinc- 
ing, their intellects are satisfied. Others 
cannot reach this intellectual certainty; 
their minds are so constituted that the 
proofs brought forward do not satisfy 
them. Blessed without doubt are they 
who admit the historic fact without having 
seen the Risen Lord. But more blessed 
still are they who have a true faith in the 
Risen One ; who know that his life is con- 
tinued in the Christian Church and in 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 255 

their own souls because they have a per- 
sonal experience of the resurrection of 
their Saviour! These see and touch him 
in the true sense of the word. It is true 
that they have neither sensible nor intel- 
lectual evidence; but they have moral 
evidence, a thousand times more precious. 

He who has this faith feels no need of 
going to the bottom of the historic ques- 
tion, lie feels, he experiences, that faith 
in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and 
the plaee iluit this faith occupies in the 
life of the Christian are a matter of inward 
persona] experience, and that such a faith 
has nothing to gain by the verification of 
a historic fact. 

Most idle, therefore, are the intermin- 
able discussions which can end in nothing, 
regarding what took place on the third day 
alter the crucifixion; questions like those 
which we lately examined : What became 
of the body? Of what nature were the 
visions of the apostles? How are we to 
reconcile the divergences of the five 
accounts, — divergences which indicate 
divers sorts of more or less contradictory 
traditions? What are we to understand 
by this ? What are we to understand by 



256 THE DEATH AND 

that? These endless questions and discus- 
sions are more injurious than useful to 
faith; and in any case they are entirely 
useless, since a historic fact cannot be an 
object of faith. 

What, for instance, is the use of asking 
whether the visions were exterior or inte- 
rior? One fact is certain, that the dis- 
ciples heard their Master's voice. Who 
could have invented the dialogue of Jesus 
with St. Peter, 1 the words addressed to 
Thomas, 2 to Mary Magdalene? 3 But did 
the disciples hear these words with the 
material bodily ear, perceiving articulate 
sounds striking upon the ear, or did they 
hear them sounding in the depths of their 
hearts, in those sacred hours when it was 
no more they who lived, but Jesus Christ 
who lived in them? 4 The answer matters 
little ; one fact is no less supernatural than 
the other. The essential thing is that 
they really heard their Master. The true 
believer can and does say: "I know not 
whether it was the bodily ear or the ear 
of the soul which received those divine 
sounds; but one thing I do know well, 

1 John xxi. 15-19. 2 John xx. 24-29. 

8 John xx. 17. 4 Gal. ii. 20. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 257 

that Jesus Christ spoke to Mary Magda- 
lene, to Thomas, to St. Peter; that he 
spoke to St. Paul on the road to Damascus; 
that he was still speaking to him when he 
said 4 My grace is sufficient for thee;' 1 
that lie spoke to Pascal on the memorable 
and blessed night when he said to him, 
k Thou wouldflt not have sought me if thou 
hadst not already found me; ' and that he 
has spoken to myself." 

The true believer lias no need of historic 
proofs; ho has intuitions of heart and 
conscience, and those eternal reasons which 
lie in the depths of his soul and which the 
abstract reason knows not of. He is a 
believer, because a group of facts concern- 
ing Jesus arouse in him impressions and 
feelings of which he is not master: his 
appearance in history at a precise moment, 
just the right one ; his person, of a compel- 
ling greatness ; his return to life, affirmed 
by so many witnesses; so many facts, 
insufficient for the historian who will be 
only a historian, but sufficient for the man 
himself, for him who lets himself be moved 
in the inward parts, as our fathers used to 
express it, who listens only to the utter- 

1 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
17 



258 THE DEATH AND 

ance of his own soul: God has spoken, 
God has revealed himself; he has visited 
the earth; I cannot not believe, I cannot 
otherwise, as Luther said. 

The believer obeys an irresistible moral 
pressure. The object of his faith is not 
perhaps scientifically proven, but it suf- 
fices him that no scientific proofs can be 
opposed to his faith. 

Nevertheless, we admit with utmost 
frankness, the apologetic proof drawn 
from the reality of the resurrection of 
Jesus is broken down, as indeed are all 
external proofs, that is, those drawn from 
miracle. 

It is remarkable indeed that everybody 
is of this opinion. The most strongly 
believing orthodox pastors never, except 
on Easter Day, take their stand upon the 
proof afforded by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ to demonstrate to their hearers the 
truth of the gospel. 

They still do it on Easter Day. They 
reason in this way: "Christ is risen, 
therefore Christianity is true ; our faith is 
not vain, and we also shall arise from the 
dead." But never during the rest of the 
year do the most orthodox preachers (with 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 259 

possible but certainly very rare exceptions) 
draw their arguments from the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ. It would seem to 
them, not without reason, that to make 
the demonstration of the future life rest 
upon the resurrection of Jesus, which has 
to be proved, would be to undertake to 
light up a dark room by opening a window 
into the night. 

More than this, when a pastor conducts 
a funeral service, never in his sermon does 
the most orthodox (always with very rare 
exceptions) make use of the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ to console his hearers and 
give them the hope of again meeting their 
departed friends, lie says to them, "It 
is not possible that all is ended; your 
hearts and your consciences both protest, 
and Jesus Christ promises eternal life in 
his teaching; ho said, w Blessed are they 
who hunger and thirst after righteousness, 
for they shall be filled.' 1 Faith in the 
justice of God and in his love require a 
future life," etc. He says nothing else. 
And in the liturgical prayers of the funeral 
service we shall hardly find two or three 
passages that make brief allusion to the 

i Matt. v. 6. 



260 THE DEATH AND 

resurrection of Jesus Christ. 1 The fif- 
teenth chapter of the First Epistle to the 
Corinthians is read at the cemetery, but 
only the close of the chapter where no 
mention is made of the resurrection of 
Jesus, and the prayer that follows makes 
no allusion to the Risen Jesus Christ. It 
simply speaks of "the promises full of 
consolation which God has caused us to 
hear in his blood." 

The apologetic value of the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ is then recognized to be 
nil even by the most conservative. Why 
is this ? Because if Christianity is not an 
opinion but a life, it is still more true to 
say this of the resurrection of Jesus. It 
is not an opinion, but a life; it is not 
simply belief in a fact of history, it is 
above all a life in communion with the 
eternal Christ. The resurrection of Jesus 
is less a material fact to be historically 
proved, than a spiritual reality to be appre- 
hended by faith. " Blessed are they which 
have not seen and yet have believed! " 2 

1 See the late liturgies put forth by the Reformed 
Church [of Frauce] ; that of Bersier ; that of the offi- 
cial Synod. 

2 John xx. 29. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 261 



CONCLUSION 

A /T Y work is done ; and at the moment 
of laying down the pen, I feel pro- 
foundly that which every historian of Jesus 
has experienced after having attempted to 
describe him, to narrate his life, to read 
in his soul, — a profound discouragement. 
And if this is the case, if I am discon- 
tented with myself and my work, I dare 
not (hitter myself that I shall satisfy those 
who may become acquainted with it. 

I had had a vision; the vision subsists 
behind the imperfect representation of it 
which I have sketched. I knew from the 
first that the disappointment which I am 
feeling was inevitable; I expected it; it 
has continually reappeared in the course 
of history for every one who has tried to 
fix the picture of Jesus. But the disap- 
pointment is useful, it is necessaiy; I may 
even say it is blessed and beneficent, for 
by it we comprehend and measure the in- 
comparable grandeur of the Son of man. 



262 THE DEATH AND 

I have, however, almost always confined 
myself to setting forth facts, ascertained 
facts. I have not sought to explain 
Jesus, and I shall not attempt to do so 
in this concluding chapter. Explanations, 
more or less ideal, are inevitably vague 
and abstract. On the other hand, I have 
tried to sketch a figure which is very 
human, very much alive. I have desired 
to show, with as much accuracy as pos- 
sible, the human reality of the life of 
Jesus. 

It had seemed to me, and it still seems 
to me, that the Christ of history is much 
more edifying to know than the Christ of 
the Church. It is certain that the Christ 
who will save the modern world will not 
be the Christ of metaphysical formulas 
and more or less satisfactory dogmatics; 
it will be he the beating of whose heart 
we feel, whose hand finds ours in days of 
anguish and mourning ; he who has passed 
through our struggles, our emotions, and 
our tears, and come out conqueror over 
doubt by faith and prayer! 

I have tried to take the humanity of 
Jesus "seriously," as people say, having 
observed that everybody says that this 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 263 

ought to be done, and no one does it. The 
three volumes which I bring to a close 
to-d .in attempt at a protest against 

the incorrigible docetism of our Christian- 
ity and our theology. 

I ih. mk those believers who have 
written t<> me as my first two volumes 
have appeared, to say, "Von have edified 

von have shown OS the Saviour as he 

must have been; yon have brought him 

near to ns. and we hope, by the same act 

have brought ns nearer to him." I am 
told that other believers have been scan- 
dalized by reading what I have written. 
I am surprised and grieved to learn it; I 
ask myself how these persons picture Jesus 
Christ to themselves. Was he, or was he 
not, "tempted like us in all tilings yet 
without sin"? 1 Did he, or did he not, 
"learn obedience by the things which he 
suffered "? a Did he, or did he not, "empty 
himself and "take the form of a man"? 3 
[f I have succeeded in showing the error 
o[ those who oppose the divinity of Jesus 
to his humanity, and artlessly imagine 
that whatever one concedes to the latter 

1 Ileb. iv. 15. 2 Heb. v. 8. 

" Phil ii. 7. 



264 THE DEATH AND 

one takes away from the former, I shall 
be amply repaid for my trouble. 

It is the humanity of Christ that we 
need to exalt, for on it is based his true 
greatness. I have tried to speak of this 
greatness of Jesus ; I have tried to bring 
it out into the light, and this is why I 
have attempted to paint his humanity in 
its true lineaments. 

In this Conclusion I shall not return to 
the three questions which I first posited, 
and which form the general title of my three 
volumes. I imagine that they have grad- 
ually answered themselves in the course of 
my threefold story. 

Of the work of Jesus, I have nothing 
more to say than I have said. If a Jewish 
sect became the Christian Church of all 
civilized peoples, this work was done after 
the time of Jesus. As to his own work, 
that which was the germ and starting- 
point of this sublime evolution, I have 
described it. 

As for his authority, I have also ex- 
plained myself, and in detail, in the chapter 
entitled The Requirements of Jesus. 1 

Still, some persons have not entirely 

1 "Jesus Christ during his Ministry/' p. 238 ff. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 265 

understood me. I have said, "Jesus 
Christ does not ask us to believe like him; 
he asks us to believe in him." I have been 
reproached for this expression. I think it 
is because I have not succeeded in making 
my thought sufficiently clear. It seems 
necessary to return to it here and develop 
it; for it seems to me that whoever per- 
fectly understands me cannot fail to agree 
with me. 

Jesus did not present himself as a doctor, 
a scribe, teaching facts and ideas that 
neither the reason nor the conscience can 
grasp, or coming to communicate super- 
natural truths to the world. He came 
" to seek and to save those who are lost; " ] 
that is, to modify our personal relations 
with God. Jesus did a work; he acted; 
and he asks of his disciples to act, to 
follow him, to renounce themselves; to 
believe, of course, but to believe with a 
faith which is also an act, an act of will, 
a union with him, and not with a faith 
which is nothing but an intellectual belief 
in words, in formulas, in doctrines. Jesus 
Christ saves; that is, he enfranchises 
souls, he feeds and strengthens them by 

1 Luke xix. 10. 



266 THE DEATH AND 

sanctifying them. The " weary and heavy 
laden " 1 experience the power of the gospel 
and the authority of Jesus Christ. 

In the mind of certain Christians reve- 
lation is the communication of facts and 
ideas which man could not discover by his 
own intelligence. Such Christians are in 
evident error. Revelation is a communi- 
cation of the Spirit of God, which acts 
upon the conscience to sanctify and en- 
lighten it. Therefore I can never succeed 
in understanding those pious and believing 
persons who refuse to accept the formula: 
man is saved by faith independently of 
beliefs. 

A belief is an intellectual opinion, and 
an intellectual opinion cannot save. There 
are the two words, the word faith and the 
word belief ; and since there are two words, 
it is apparent that there is some shade of 
difference in their signification. Was it 
not the pious Neander who said, "There 
is a faith which saves ; there is not a dog- 
matic which saves." Well, we fideists, 2 as 

1 Matt. xi. 28. 

2 Fidtiste is a word introduced into the French lan- 
guage by the school of thinkers headed by Auguste 
Sabatier, Mene'goz, and Stapfer, of the theological fac- 
ulty of the University of Paris, to denote those who hold 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 267 

we are called, say nothing else, and this 
truth is so limpid that it ought to be called 
a truth of La Palisse. 1 

Now Jesus never required of any one a 
dogmatic system, a creed of any sort. He 
was wiser than the Synods, with their poor 
little two-lined confessions of faith, — very 
short, as if they were afraid of confessions 
of faith, and feeling that they are commit- 
ting an error would commit the smallest 
one possible. 

To believe like Jesus Christ — who 
indeed could do it in our day? Jesus be- 
lieved in demons, and we no longer believe 
in them. Formerly it used to be said, 
we must not reason with the Scriptures. 
That time is far past, and no one now says 

the doctrine above formulated, — that a man is saved 
by faith without regard t<> doctrine. — Trans. 

1 A self evident proposition. La Palisse was a 
doughty captain under Louie XTI. Many songs cele- 
brated his exploits ; the author of the most popular of 
these, La Monnoye, quite inadvertently made the last 
two lines of i-arli stanza consist of such propositions: 
" Fifteen minutes before his death he was still alive," 
" He never gave way to wrath except when he was 
angry," etc. The popular fancy, tickled with this con- 
ceit, kept on adding to this amusing ballad, which now 
contains an indefinite number of stanzas, all of this 
character. — Trans. 



268 THE DEATH AND 

even we must not reason with Jesus 
Christ; for every one reasons with him. 
Thus, no one takes literally sayings which 
he certainly took literally; for example, 
these : " Sell all that thou hast and give to 
the poor." 1 "If a man forsake not all 
that he hath he cannot be my disciple." 2 
"Sell that ye have and give alms." 3 
"Give to him that asketh of thee," 4 etc. 
We say, these words are to be taken figu- 
ratively, or " Jesus took them literally and 
not figuratively;" in other words, we 
reason with him. 

But thanks be to God, times change, and 
customs with them. What Jesus could 
say and did say in his time, and what 
would be practical in his time, will not do 
for ours, and he would not say it to-day. 
This was the error of Francis of Assisi 
and the mendicant orders, to have thought 
that certain words of Jesus were applicable 
to all times and all conditions. 

As for us, we are entirety at ease with 
these words, because Jesus Christ did not 
say that we were to think like him. He 
does not cast out those whose intelligence 

1 Matt. xix. 21. 2 Luke xiv. 33. 

3 Luke xii. 33, xi. 41. i Matt. v. 42 ; Luke vi. 30. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 269 

doubts, those who do not hold his opin- 
ions and ore not Jews, as he inevitably was, 
— those, for example, who do not hold his 
apocalyptic beliefs; but he does repel those 
who do not follow him, or rather those 
who themselves repel him, setting them- 
selves apart from him. He who docs not 
come to him and follow him places himself 
apart from him, according to his w r ords, 
"Him that comcth unto me I will in no 
wise cast out/' l 

Since Jesus Christ shared certain errone- 
ous opinions of his time, — and no one can 
dispute that he did, — it necessarily fol- 
lows that we make a choice in his sayings; 
there is no way to avoid it. Hence we 
accept, we declare authoritative, only what 
we consent to accept as such. 

I know what people are saying; they 
say: "Then you do not believe in the 
authority of Jesus Christ; you yourself 
are your own authority. If you think 
yourself permitted to say, I accept this 
and not that, you are the authority; there 
is no alternative." 

Nevertheless, this is a mistake; for it 
was not I who made Jesus Christ, I 

1 John vi. 37. 



270 THE DEATH AND 

did not create him, invent him; he is 
there, he comes to me from without, I 
find him in history. My experience does 
not create the authority of Jesus Christ; 
but Jesus Christ enters into contact with 
me, and produces in me a moral crisis, 
that of conversion and faith. I take my 
place on his side ; I believe in him, I obey 
him, I love him ; his divine word becomes 
authoritative with me. It is not I who 
create the truth, but I make it mine by 
my experience of it. 

If I am asked why I am a Christian, I 
reply that it is because of the impression 
Jesus Christ has made upon me. I do not 
believe in him because he performed mira- 
cles, nor even because he arose from the 
dead, but because he dominates me in the 
totality of his teaching, his person, his 
work, his entire manifestation. 

But there is an inevitable intellectual 
element in religious experience, otherwise 
religion would become confused with a 
vague sentiment and an indecisive religi- 
osity. As I have said, Jesus Christ modi- 
fies our relations with God. And this 
God is not the Becoming of Hegel nor 
the determinism of modern philosophers; 



j:/:surrection OF JESUS CHRIST 271 

it is Dot the fatv/m of the ancients; it is 
the Father -Spirit, Will, and Love. To 
live in communion with the heavenly 
Father is to pray, and Jesus teaches us 
how to enter into relations with him by 
prayer. The Father hears the prayer of 
his child and answers it. Jesus teaches 
us also that we are sinners; he speaks of a 
new birth ;is necessary, of a conversion, 
and he shows us how we can be horn again 
i>v repentance and faith in him who has 
conquered evil and saved as. In him I 
discover the normal relations of man with 
God, and thus his testimony as to the 
relations which we OUght to maintain with 

God becomes my law, because he was in 

perfect relations with God. This is what 
I understand by the authority of Jesus 
Christ. It is surely his authority; it is 
not mine. 

As to the very person of the Christ, I 
am more and more persuaded of the inanity 
of definitions and formulas. We have 
seen Jesus of Nazareth proclaiming him- 
self as the Messiah foretold by the prophets, 
as him who was to prepare for the speedy 
establishment of the kingdom of God in 
Jerusalem and over the whole earth, say- 



272 THE DEATH AND 

ing that men are to prepare for its coming 
by repentance, humility, and faith in the 
Son of the Father who is in heaven. 

The Jews crucified him who desired thus 
to be their Saviour, and he, being entirely 
submissive to the will of the Father, 
understood that by a violent death he 
accomplished that work of salvation which 
he had hoped would be different, and 
which he would gladly have accomplished 
in some other way. 

Even upon the cross (save for one short 
moment) he was sustained by confidence 
that the Father was with him, that lie, the 
Son, was accomplishing the work that the 
Father had given him to do, and that he 
would return in the clouds, to found the 
Kingdom and judge the living and the dead. 

And then what happened ? Already in 
the time of the apostles a very curious 
union had been formed of Jewish Messi- 
anic beliefs and Platonic speculations, and 
Jesus, that Jesus of Nazareth who had 
lived and had been crucified twenty-five 
or thirty years earlier, became the person- 
age whom St. Paul describes in some of 
his Epistles l the first-born of creation, 

1 Especially in the Epistle to the Colossiaiis. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 273 

a divine agenl who had produced every- 
thing, such a one as .Justin Martyr later 
called a second God. 'Jims was the doc- 
trine of the incarnation formed. Then 
came still other developments of the doc- 
trine, those of Fathers and Councils: 
they resolved the difficulties which are in- 
soluble because they are contradictory, by 
setting them over against one another 
and making of them "mysteries" which 
must he believed. 1 

These were tads which only need to 
:;ited and accepted, demonstrable evi- 
dence, historic evidence; and history is not 
to be argued. The Reformers accepted 
these doctrines and mysteries of the Roman 

Catholic Church, and there is, strictly 

iking, no Protestant Christology. Prot- 
estantism has never had any other Chris- 
tianity than that of the great councils; 
that is, Roman Catholic Christology. This 
is indeed the case with most of the dogmas 
^ Catholicism anterior to the sixteenth 
century. Thus Protestants read the Apos- 
tles' Creed in their churches. It is a 
notorious inconsistency on the part of 
Christians who propose, as they say, to 

1 Bee "Jesus Christ l>efore liis Ministry," p. 156 f. 

18 



274 THE DEATH AND 

"restore Christianity to its primitive 
purity; " for they are the first to recognize 
that the Symbol called the Apostles' Creed 
owes its history only to a falsehood in 
its title, that it is the product of a pain- 
ful elaboration not completed until the 
sixth century, and that it was long be- 
fore it made good its claim to universal 
acceptance. 

We must admit it: Protestantism is 
here singularly powerless by reason of its 
very principle. It is easy to say, let us 
go back to the sources, let us leave the 
metaphysics of the old theology, let us 
place ourselves on the moral and religious 
plane of the gospel. Where is this moral 
and religious plane? Where is the basis 
of a Protestant dogmatic? The word 
u gospel " is continually taken here in a 
singularly vague sense. There are differ- 
ences between the Christological ideas of 
the Synoptics, those of the Fourth Gospel, 
and the metaphysical notions set forth in 
more than one Epistle. 

These differences are evident. It is 
therefore necessary to choose, and to 
choose is to create individual opinions. 

For my part, I am not surprised at this : 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 

nor do I regret it. I am convinced that 
individualism of this sort is the wisest 
cours-', and the only one possible at the 
present time. Kadi believer in Protestant- 
ism makes his own Christology, because 
i believer represents the divinity of 
lb Christ in his own way, and it is not 
the way of his neighbor. 

Let us recall to mind the grand saying 
of Jesus: "No man knoweth the Son but 
the Father.*' ' I say on the authority <»i' this 
utterance that it is impossible to define 
Jesus. lb 4 remains above and outside of 
all the subtdlties, — I say more, of all 
the Impossibilities of metaphysics, and 

by the word. "No One knoweth the Son 
but the Father,'' 2 he retains an incompre- 
hensibility which is one of the most cer- 
tain signs of his divinity, and should make 
a part of all our adoration of him. 

I add that the Christ in whom I believe, 
who has revealed his life to me, is the 
Redeeming Christ. When Jesus tells me 
that his blood was shed for the remission 
of sins, I believe him; not only because 
he said it, but still more because I have 
need of salvation, and because the work 

1 Matt. xi. 27. - Matt. xi. 27. 



276 THE DEATH AND 

which he accomplishes responds to and 
corresponds with the desire of my soul. 

Whatever theological explanation may 
be found as to the origin of sin and its 
nature, sin is a fact. But Jesus Christ 
was without sin, and he was at peace with 
his Father. He offers us peace ; he leaves 
it with us, he gives it to us. 1 But shall 
we find it by the simple path of moral in- 
fluence? Does contact with him awaken 
in our souls a sentiment of divine son- 
ship comparable with his, and does it 
give us peace with God, perfect, unalter- 
able peace, a peace never disturbed? No; 
that is impossible, for sin is in us; and 
sin is a barrier that separates us from 
God. To find repose, we must go to the 
foot of the cross of the Redeeming Christ. 

There we must " die to sin " and " rise 
again," and begin a new life 2 beside the 
empty tomb of the eternally living 
Saviour. 

I am convinced that the modern man, 
imbued with the scientific spirit of our 
time, who will sacrifice nothing that con- 
temporary science gives him and which 
he with reason holds as a definitive con- 

1 John xiv. 27. 2 Rom. vi. 4. 



RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 277 

quest, the modern man who looks on 
with admiring gratitude at the magnum 
opus of science and sees the immense and 
magnificent temple of the future arising 
from the earth all around him, — I say I 
am convinced that such a man could, and 
at the same time ought to, understand that 
science does not suffice to satisfy him, and 
never will satisfy any one. When he has 
arrived at this certainty, and it has left 
him disturbed and disquieted with the 
confusion of his thoughts and sentiments, 
he will find peace in pardon, and will find 
it nowhere else than there; and he will 
find pardon nowhere but in Redemption, 
for nowhere else is the succor proportioned 
to the distress of his soul. 



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